


Be Better

by Vaela



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Captain America Sam Wilson, Characters watching memories, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Merchant of Death Tony Stark, Mind Control, New Avengers, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker is new Tony Stark, Time Travel, Tony Stark Has A Heart, characters watching the future
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2020-04-11
Packaged: 2020-06-02 07:09:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 25,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vaela/pseuds/Vaela
Summary: "I was dead for five years. There was a war when I died. I came back; we won. Everybody was talking about what we gained... no one will talk about what we lost," There is intruder in Stark Tower and Avengers use Wanda to see his memories. Well, basically characters watch the past / memories or something like that.





	1. Chapter 1

They had an intruder in the Tower. INTRUDER IN THE TOWER! HIS TOWER! He had worked on the tower security himself! How the hell it was possible at all?! JARVIS hadn't even detected his presence! It was good fortune that Thor had been wandering around and caught him... and he fought back, against Thor! And he almost kicked Thor's sorry ass. He would have if the sound of the fight hadn't brought the other Avengers.

They had him captured and unconscious, but he was quickly waking up. JARVIS was already scanning him.

"Who are you?" Widow asked when their prisoner opened his eyes. He looked around, confused. Then his eyes met Tony's and he was visibly stunned. He gulped after a few seconds.

Everybody looked at Tony, who only shrugged.

"Who are you?" Tony asked this time.

The young man didn't answer, and it was like he didn't know what to say. It was strange. A Hydra spy wouldn't be so troubled at being captured. They asked, but he was just silent.

Then, Wanda stepped in questioningly, and Steve nodded his approval.

"No," the prisoner said, shaking his head like he knew what Wanda planned to do.

"I think I can show you what I'm seeing, too," Wanda said as she looked at the team. They all looked kind of curious, except for Tony, who looked at the terrified man.

"Are you going to talk, or not? Last chance," Tony said.

"I... can't," he said, not taking eyes from Tony.

Wanda came closer and put a hand on the young man's forehead.

"I'm... sorry," the boy said, and allowed the power of Scarlet Witch to do its job. He didn't resist, for he knew from the experience that it was a stupid thing to do. Wanda waved her hand at empty space next to them, and amid the mist of red, her magic shaped some image.

"Wow. Magical projector," Tony said, rolling his eyes. But then, in the mist, they saw their prisoner, but he was younger and he was sleeping... and he seemed to have a nightmare.

 _"If you even cared, you'd actually be here," a boyish voice said, before a man stepped from the Iron Man suit-Tony Stark. While the mist version of him was obviously angry, Tony could see the worry deep within his eyes. The_ _y were talking about something, but whatever it was was blurred._

Tony raised his brow and looked at the boy.

"That never happened," Tony said, and realized that armor in the background was not his... it was his tech, but none of his armor suits looked that way. And he seemed to be a little bit older in this vision.

"The boy seems to be from the future," Thor said casually.

"You are shitting me, right? There is no such thing as time travel," Tony answered, but then vision moved.

_"I just wanted to be like you," the boy said, looking at Tony, who snorted._

_" And I wanted you to be better," he said, not impressed._

Tony looked troubled at what the vision had shown. He thought for a moment that Wanda might be manipulating the vision just to make him look awkward or something, but-the way that boy looked at him. . .

_Then, they saw the boy, who was shifting uncomfortably in his bed._

_The boy was in the middle of the terrible fight. Chitauri were fighting with everybody, but then he heard something, something that he shouldn't have been able to hear in this noise._

_" I am inevitable."_

_The boy looked at the side where the voice came from and he swung in that way._

_"_ What the hell is that?!" Clint cursed, looking at the battlefield that was shown. Tony shifted. He saw this already once. He looked at Wanda, who was still connected to the boy's mind.

"And what the kid is doing there? He can't be older than seventeen!" Steve looked horrified.

_"I. Am. Iron Man."_

_They all heard Tony's voice... then they saw Iron Man, kneeling on the ground. Some strange energy was pulsing from his gauntlet_ _to the rest of his body before he_ _snapped his fingers._

 _The entire_ _Chitauri army was turned to dust as the boy, Pepper, Rhodey, Steve, and Thor stood by Tony's side._

_"Mr. Stark? Hey... Mr. Stark? Can you hear me? It's Peter. We won. Mr. Stark... We won, Mr. Stark. We won and you did it, sir. You did it. I'm sorry... Tony..."_

Peter. They got a name.

Peter.

"What the hell!" Tony shouted, terrified of what he had just seen.

They all knew a dying person when they saw one, and the Tony from the vision was definitely dying. Pepper grabbed his hand with tears in her eyes. Whatever his vision was, she didn't want it to become true.

 _"I wanted you to be better._ _"_

They heard that again. It was the mantra for this man... for Peter. Those words had dug their way into his brain. Tony could almost see the younger version ofhimself when the mantra he repeated was that he had to be as good as Captain America.

 _"Mr. Staaark... you are holding this wrong," Peter said with a grimace, trying to put the frame correctly in Tony's hands. But he didn't manage to do to it, because Tony grabbed him and hugged him_ _to the picture that Happy was taking. It was a certificate of ending internship in the Stark Industries._

_They smiled like idiots and they were doing bunny ears to each other._

Nobody spoke. They were still thinking about that battlefield that they just saw and Tony's death that the boy had witnessed. He can be a young man now, but in those vision, he was definitely a kid.

 _"Mr. Stark? I don't feel so good..." Peter said, and_ _he had trouble walking toward Tony. Tony looked at him,_ _terrified. He tried to be calm, but he couldn't._

_"You're all right," Tony tried to convince himself._

_"I don't know what's- I don't know what's happening. I don't-" he fell into Tony's arms. " I don't wanna go, I don't wanna go, Mr. Stark, please. Please, I don't wanna go. I don't wanna go..." he was repeating himself_ _. "I'm sorry"._

 _Then he just turned into the ash in Tony's arms. Stark looked like his whole world turned into ash in that_ _moment._

Whatever happened to that boy... he seemed to have a long history with Tony.

"Is... no. This can't be real. What the hell... how he could just turn into ash? He was there," Tony tried to rationalize, but he just couldn't. That was too bizarre and he didn't have enough data.

Avengers seemed to be in shock. They didn't know what to say.

_"Tony! You have a meeting!" They heard Pepper yell, then they saw Tony's lab. He was working with Peter on something... he had a hat with a propeller on his head._

_"Yeah, I lost a bet to the underoos," he answered and spun the_ _propeller on his head. "I'm going wear this the_ _whole day." H_ _e rolled his eyes and Peter couldn't help himself as he started laughing._

 _" I swear that was not my idea. The kid has a bad influence on me." Tony put a hand on his heart. Pepper looked angry but she kinda loved that. When Tony came closer, she just kissed him for the greeting and swung the_ _propeller on his head._

_They laughed._

_"Kid, don't blow up my lab when I'm gone," Tony said and left with Pepper._

Despite all the things that they watched, this one made all of them smile a little bit. They really looked like family. Avengers found it hard to image Tony in the family way, but when they looked at him in this vision, it seemed to be natural to him.

Tony was shocked... not only at that whole family thing that was shouting at him from this memory, but he left that kid alone in his lab. He trusted that kid with his tech, with his everything.

 _"Are you ok, Queens?" Steve asked they stood next to the lake next to Tony's home. Both Spiderman and Captain America_ _wore black suits and ties._

 _"It's a stupid question to ask after the funeral,_ _" Peter murmured._

_Steve didn't know how to answer that._

"The kid is right," Pepper said, looking at Captain, who looked uncomfortable in response. Yeah, it seemed to be a faux pas. Pepper was still in pain because it was finally reaching her mind that it was Tony's funeral they were talking about.

 _"I was dead for five years. There was a war when I died. I came back; we won. Everybody was_ _talking about what we gained... no one will talk about what we lost," Peter answered in an_ _angry tone._

_Steve chuckled grimly_

"I... said something similar to Director Fury when he asked me to join Avengers," the captain said, looking at the kid. He knew what it was like. The kid seemed to have lost less time than himself, but still.. for some reason the kid that his future-self was calling 'Queens', was believed to be dead for five years. Maybe after this ash thing?

"It seems that you have something in common," Natasha shrugged.

_"I know how it feels," Steve answered. "He loved you like son, you know? When he returned from Titan... he was broken. He returned after a month in space, and his first words on Earth to me-to everybody-were 'I lost the kid.'"_

_"It sucks that I have to learn that from you, not from Tony himself," Peter murmured. He was just too tired to react emotionally to all of it. He was just depressed. There was too much grief inside him right now. He felt numb._

_Steve smiled._

_"I think that his actions spoke louder than any word he could say to you," Cap answered, and looked at Peter, who seemed to be thinking about Steve's words. His lips cracked into a single sad smile._

_"I guess you're right," he answered. "So... what are you planning to do now?" Peter asked, not wanting to talk about Tony anymore._

_"I have to return Infinity Stones and Thor's hammer to their right places in time. After that... I think I'm going to listen to Tony's advice for once," Steve answered sincerely, looking at the lake._

_Peter raised his brow._

_"He was always saying that I should go and try normal life... and I am late on one date in the past," Rogers answered._

_"You know that you can mess with a lot of things?" Peter asked, just to be sure._

_"I know... but I guess it is time for the first Avengers to go retire. Tony was right. We're just a bunch of old men. The Avengers needs new blood. I'm glad to see that the fate of the universe is in good hands," Steve said to Peter._

_Peter seemed to not understand it; it was kinda obvious that Captain was talking about him, but Peter didn't understand this._

_"Well, good luck," Peter answered._

_"Good luck to you too, Queens." They shake their hands and Captain picked up a suitcase and... Thor's hammer and left._

"DID YOU SEE WHAT I SAW OR IS MY MIND JUST..."Tony didn't finish his thought.

"DID STEVE JUST PICK UP THOR'S HAMMER?!" Clint was next for the loud reaction.

"HA! I KNEW YOU WOULD BE WORTHY." Thor smiled and patted Steve's arm.

Steve seemed to be too shocked to say anything.

_"I wanted you to be better."_

_"I. Am. Iron Man."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_"I wanted you to be better."_

_"I. Am. Iron Man."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_"I wanted you to be better."_

_"I. Am. Iron Man."_

_"I'm sorry."_

_The scenes seemed to flash._

_Then Peter woke up and he jumped onto the ceiling. Literally._

Viewers looked surprised when they saw how Peter was... glued to the ceiling.

"How did he..." Banner asked.

"There had to be a reason that he was even allowed to fight," Natasha rationalized.

" _Pete... are you ok?" some woman said from the other room._

_"Yes May, I'm fine," Peter answered automatically. It was a Stark mannerism to say that he was fine when he wasn't just to gain some peace. He jumped back on the floor when May entered the room._

_"Pete..." she looked at him with compassion. "Please... you have nightmares for weeks now. Please talk to me." She was worried._

_"I... can't," he answered with a sigh. "You wouldn't understand," he added._

_"So talk to somebody who will understand. To Pepper, to Happy, to Rhodey... I'm begging you, Peter," she pleaded. It seemed that this thing with nightmares and waking up on the ceiling was happening for a while._

_"I'm going on patrol," Peter murmured and his nano-iron-spider suit covered his body in a second. Then, he just jumped from the window and swung away, leaving a worried May behind._

And now their thoughts returned to the point where they all were thinking about Tony's future death. Pepper was in tears now and held Tony's hand strongly. He just put an arm around her for support. He still couldn't wrap his mind around everything that they were learning from the boy's mind.

"Maybe... we should stop it right now," Tony suggested.

"What?!" some of the Avengers asked.

"I... this is future right? Maybe we shouldn't know this all..." Tony said.

"But we can save you!" Pepper said with tears in her eyes.

"... And maybe you can't. We are not getting enough data. Just scraps that are only confusing!" Tony sighed.

_Peter swung around the city. He passed very low next to the bookshop and stopped for a while to look at the exposition. Some books and of course there had to be at least a few with Tony's face._

_"ANTHONY STARK: FROM MERCHANT OF DEATH TO THE HERO OF THE UNIVERSE" Biography._

_"IRON MAN & BLACK WIDOW: HEART AND SOUL OF THE AVENGERS" Kinda biography._

_He looked briefly on the covers and swung away._

"Merchant of Death?" Thor asked and looked at Tony, surprised.

"Long story," he murmured.

"Heart and soul of the Avengers? Why would they make a book about Natasha AND Tony?" Clint asked. Stark was thinking the same thing as Natasha Natasha glanced at Tony with a knowing look.

"The only logical reason is that I died in the same battle that Tony died," Black Widow answered with a sigh.

_Then Peter sat on some rooftop and looked at the big mural of Iron Man. His mask was off, showing red eyes and tears. Then scene blurred and in the next one, there was Happy and Peter, sitting in Avengers compound._

_"Everywhere I go, I see his face," Peter said, looking at Happy. "I just really miss him," he added. He had been crying some time ago, and his eyes were still red._

_"Yeah, I miss him too."_

Tony gulped. Sometimes he believed that when he would die... nobody would mourn him. Maybe Peps and Rhodey a little bit. Happy maybe too a little. But they would move on quickly. It seemed that Peter couldn't move on so easily.

_"I don't think Tony would've done what he did if he didn't know you were gonna be here after he was gone," Happy said._

_Peter's face became blank._

Tony scowled.

"Not putting pressure on the kid, not at all," Tony murmured.

Others only nodded.

_"You are a very difficult person to contact, Spiderman," Fury said._

"What he does he want from the kid," Tony growled.

_The scene seemed to be different, but there was still Nick Fury and Peter._

_"The world needs someone to fill Tony's place. Are you gonna step in, or not?" Fury asked._

_The next scene appeared._

_"The world needs another Iron Man," Peter admitted, before he faded and the scene was replaced by Fury._

_"Peter, let me tell you something I learned hard way. There is no secret boy-band without a Stark," he said, and looked at Peter, whose brows rose in surprise._

Natasha and Tony again looked at each other; they understood what Fury was referring too. Tony was kinda touched by the sentiment.

_"I'm not a Stark," Peter answered casually._

_Nick looked at him, then he realized something and only smiled, as much as Fury could smile._

_"Just think about my offer." Then Fury left._

"Bastard. He is just using the fact that Peter admires Tony," Pepper said. As much as Clint and Natasha wanted to disagree, they couldn't. It was too obvious.

Tony just looked at kid with compassion. _Damn kid... you choose poor mentor material,_ he thought. Tony realized how serious the future relationship between him and Peter was and it freaked him out a bit.

_Peter was standing in some living room in Tony's house at the lake. He was looking at pictures in frames. There was a picture from Pepper's and Tony's wedding, which he missed, there was a picture of Tony holding a little Morgan. A picture of Pepper, Tony and Morgan... and a picture of Peter and Tony. He smiled._

_"Peter, I'm sorry. I heard about your trip," Pepper said with a worried voice and handed Peter some tea._

_"Well... that is a part of the superhero life, I guess," he answered. "Funny thing happened. Fury said to me that there is no secret boy-band without a Stark... when I told him that I'm not a Stark, he looked at me in a funny way... today I learned why." Peter sighed._

_Pepper looked at him, realizing something._

_"I tried to delay this... give you time to grieve," Pepper said._

_"I know... Thank you." He said with a sad voice. "People my age usually worry what they will do after school ends... and I need to think about how I'm going to rule the biggest company in the world," he chuckled, trying to light some mood._

_"You don't have to worry about anything, for now, Pete, you are not even at the age..." Pepper answered._

_"Technically I am, Mrs. Stark. I was dead by 5 years of my life, but when you look at my birthdate... I'm of age. Regulations about the snapped half came later. Fury will try to use that to give my inheritance now. He wants me to support the New Avengers Program," Peter answered with a sigh._

_Pepper murmured some curses, probably about Nick._

_"Even if he manages to do it. You don't have to worry about anything. I will be still there as CEO. I will help you with this mess," Pepper said with a smile. "You can go to MIT, do whatever you want. Stark Industries will be waiting for you," she added._

_"Thank you, Mrs. Stark"_

_"Just call me Pepper"_

_"Ok, Mrs. Stark."_

* * *

Hello! Like always, I'm starting new fic few days before premiere of the movie that will totally destroy my concept probably, but who cares!

I hope you enjoyed it.

**Please leave review if you read it. I would be very grateful :***

See ya in the next.


	2. Chapter 2

Wanda was still connected to Peter by her magic when Tony wanted to verify something.

"JARVIS..." Tony said, not even saying to make a scan of Peter's vitals, that was obvious.

"My name is EDITH. It's good to see you alive, boss," EDITH answered with her emotionless AI tone.

Tony furrowed his brow, confused.  
"Wha... who... what the hell are you?" Tony yelled. He felt almost... in danger, now that he knew JARVIS didn't have his back. Vulnerable. A female synthetic voice made him nervous, but he didn't want to show that.

"My name is EDITH. E.D.I.T.H. is an acronym for "Even Dead, I'm The Hero.' One last AI created by Tony Stark in my timeline. My purpose was to protect Earth and Tony's family after his passing. When Ms. Maximoff used her abilities on Peter, I was automatically set to combat mode and have taken control of all tech in the area," EDITH answered.

She had made a mistake once, when Peter gave all access to Quentin, and her mistake had put him in danger. She hadn't accomplished the task given by her creator. She won't make that mistake the second time. She adapted to the situation.

"Whoa, whoa..." a few Avengers were set in combat mode too when they heard that A.I had her (figurative) hands on all tech in the area.

"Do not worry. I am not going to attack. From my data, breaking into the magical bond between Ms. Maximoff and Peter would bring more harm than good to Peter," a female voice said from behind them.

They all spun to see a pale bluish hologram of a young woman with a bob hairstyle, clothed in a two-piece woman dress suit. Sadly, this was not the first time when Wanda had used her magic on Peter, and EDITH knew the consequences of trying to stop it.

"You are EDITH?" Steve asked, just to make sure.

"I am a holographic representation of the AI. Peter Parker created this hologram after Mrs. Stark's suggestion that somebody has to 'bark on idiots who would waste your time'", EDITH answered with a smile.

A few Avengers chuckled, and Pepper blushed.

Wait... it was second or even third time that EDITH had called her 'Mrs. Stark', Pepper finally noticed. She looked at Tony, who hadn't caught it yet. He was too focused on some future AI hacking into his house. Well, it had seemed kind of obvious that the older he got, the better (more complex and fascinating) his tech would become, but HACKING INTO HIS TOWER WAS AN INSULT! From his future self!

"EDITH, can you explain to us what we just saw?" Banner asked.

"No. I cannot explain it to you. I can only assure you that what you saw was real, and that each and every vision was a memory belonging to Peter Parker," Edith answered. Tony knew the answer before it left her cyber lips. He would program her that way.

"Somehow, we have time traveler here, who is the future pupil of Stark, who turned into the ash and returned from this somehow. Sometime after that, Tony died and his pupil inherited Stark Industries. Somehow, Rogers will be capable of holding Thor's Hammer. I don't know what that 'being late on date means'," Natasha said, presenting the facts in an emotionless tone.

Rogers sighed upon hearing that. He could guess what his future self meant, but it was impossible, right? Just... but... this boy was from the future, right? So... there was a possibility that he returned to Peggy. He cleared his throat.

"Yhm... Peggy told me, before I crashed Valkyrie, to not be late on our first date," Captain America answered.

"Sooo, the future you can be even at this time as well?" Clint asked.

"No. It is not how time travel would work. I STILL BELIEVE IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. But, if we are talking about this... you can't change the past," Tony murmured and shook his head. Nobody seemed to care that he was going to die, because Steve's love life was a better subject to talk about! Some kind of friends. Maybe it was better... he didn't want to think about his death, but he saw it. The kid saw it and now they saw it.

"When you travel back in time, their future is already your past. When you change something during time travel, you create an alternative reality," Bruce added and smiled sadly. "There is nothing we can do to save Tony in Peter's timeline because he is already dead... but maybe, using his knowledge, we can save our Tony," Banner added and looked at Stark.

"'Our Tony' is here, you know," Stark rolled his eyes. "We... don't know enough to do anything. We just know that I died in his future... somehow. And... and... maybe it will be better this way! Who the hell knows," Tony raised his hands in angrily gesture. Then Pepper slapped his face. When he looked at her, she had tears in her beautiful eyes.

"Don't ever, ever talk like that," she hissed furiously.

"I'm sorry," he murmured and hugged her. He wasn't sorry for talking like that, just for making her angry and upset. He knew how she always felt when he was in danger, and now it had to be worse for her since she saw that his superhero lifestyle would lead him to death.

It triggered another memory from Peter's mind.

_Everything around was dark, Spiderman was in his first, homemade suit. He was so lost..._

_"You are just a scared little kid in a sweatsuit!" a voice said._

_Then, Spiderman was on the ground. He looked at tombstone..._

_Anthony Edward Stark, it read._

_"If you were good enough, maybe Tony would still be alive." Again, the mysterious voice spoke._

_Everything around looked like a nightmare. Suddenly, an Iron Man suit flew out of the grave, revealing a broken mask and rotting skull behind it. The empty eye socket was staring straight at Peter._

_"Deep down, you know I'm right," the voice added_

"Jesus Christ, kid," Tony said, horrified by what he had just seen. "What the hell was that?!"

"That was illusion cage created by a villain called Mysterio, who was Peter's opponent sometime after Boss's passing. Peter never told anybody what really happened during his time inside Mysterio's illusions," Edith said, looking sad.

AIs could be sad? Well, she seemed to be. Maybe guilty? But again... could an AI feel anything?

"You said that it was Peter's opponent... where were we? Why were we unable to help the kid?" Clint asked. Ok, Tony gave Peter his company and believed the kid to be his successor. Tony probably did that sometime before his death; he didn't know when he is going to die and all of this crap just fell on Peter. At least that what Clint thought at the moment. But all of them should be there to support the kid.

_"I will tell you the same thing I told Fury. I will support NA. You have my tech, my bow, and my axe... but you don't have me. I'm happy as technical advisor to New Avengers, I will be nothing more," Peter said. He was quite older than in the previous memory. He entered his office in Stark Industries, followed by some people. He wore a black suit, t-shirt with some meme and pair of black converse._

_"We need you in the field. Superheroes support each other," Sam Wilson aka the new Captain America said. Next to him was standing some woman, unknown to the past Avengers. In the background, there were some people, but they were blurred._

_And it was it..._

_"Superheroes support each other," Peter repeated after him... once, twice... and then he exploded. "WHERE THE HELL WHERE YOU WHEN I WAS FIGHTING WITH MYSTERIO? OR WHEN I WAS FRAMED FOR DESTROYING LONDON? WHEN I WAS HUMILIATED AND HUNTED?" Peter yelled angrily._

_Sam wanted to say something, but Peter didn't allow him._

_"I will tell you where you have been. You and your lovebird were somewhere. Barton was around the world, being assassin all over. Rogers went back on his date. Wanda and Strange were... somewhere. The same with Danvers. Thor went somewhere in space to "find himself"... You wanna me keep going? I can do it all day. Anyway..." Peter was speaking, but then he was interrupted by the phone call._

_"Incoming Call, Morgan Stark," EDITH said._

"Morgan Stark?" Tony asked with a raised brow.

"Maybe your kid," Clint guessed. Then Tony gave him a glare. "Hey, don't look at me like that! This guy is your ex-pupil from the future after all!" Barton explained himself. It was strange to the Avengers that Tony of all people would have a kid in the future, but they already know that in some way he had.

_Peter answered the call and put her on speaker._

_"Butterfly, 'sup?" he asked._

_"Hi Petee! Listen. I hacked into my mom phone, so she won't answer the call. Then, the principal is going to call you to pick me up from the school, will you do that to meee? Please, please. You will be king of the garage! I promise!" Morgan rushed with explanations._

_"What happened?"- Peter chuckled._

_"I maybee...maybe got into a fight? Well, it was not a fight. I just kicked some guy... well you know where," Morgan said. Peter almost could imagine that she rolled her eyes._

_"Why?" Peter asked in a calm voice._

_"You told me once that I shouldn't apologize for being the smartest person in the room... and I definitely won't be bullied because of it. I just wanted to show to them," she answered._

_"Them? Ok... never mind. I got you. I will be there ASAP; I don't have anything important to do anyway," he said it, looking at Sam's face._

_"Love you 2000, bro. See ya!" she said before hanging up._

_"See, that's the person who really needs my help. She said 'please' and I know I can trust her," Peter pointed out as he passed Sam and went away from his office. "Edith, activate 'boh' protocol," he murmured._

"So, you have your answer... everybody left," Natasha murmured to Clint. "Wait a sec. Assassin?" she realized and looked at Clint. If he became an assassin after her death, he would disgrace her memory. She would be rolling in her grave at the speed of light.

"I wouldn't," Clint denied. Some Avengers looked at Edith for confirmation.

"In our timeline, Clint is no longer an active assassin, but he was the one for a long period," EDITH confirmed.

"Why?" Barton asked.

"That is a complicated question," Edith answered ominously. Her understanding of human's behavior was still limited. She was definitely not the best person to answer Barton's question.

Tony looked at Edith, he wanted to ask THIS one question, but... it couldn't leave his lips. Daughter. Being a fatherly mentor to Peter was already freaking him out, but the realization that he was going to have a daughter was almost unbearable.

"Yes, Boss. Morgan Helena Stark is the daughter of Tony Stark from my timeline," Edith answered. She knew her creator well enough to know what he thought. Peter was not much different anyway.

"Why are you always saying 'from my timeline'?" Steve asked.

Banner and Tony rolled their eyes at the same time; it was obvious for them.

"Because our time travel was detected and it already affected this reality. Many things can happen because you know about them. Even if this Virginia Potts and Anthony Stark will marry and will have a kid, she can be a completely different person than Morgan from my time. This kid can become a boy, maybe twins, or be never born. At the moment that you caught Peter, you created an alternative timeline of events. It can be similar to ours, but it doesn't have to be," Edith explained as well as she could.

Tony looked at Pepper, then he looked at Peter.

Damn.

He was so scared of that.

But he wanted it so badly at the same time.

_Peter was swinging around the city. He landed through the sunroof into the driver's seat of his expensive car._

"Nice," Tony complimented with a smile. Well, he couldn't do that with his Iron Man suit, but that was epic!

_He drove away and seconds after that he received a call from the principal, asking him to show up at Morgan's school. He answered with the smile that he will be there in the seconds. Everything after that was blurred, and in the next memory, Morgan was already in the car. She had long, dark hair pulled into high bun on her head... and her face, God. She was Tony all over._

Tony and Pepper were looking at the memory without even blinking. That girl is something that they CAN have. Their little girl.

_"Why didn't you just swing over here?" Morgan asked._

_"I'm not taking passengers anymore," Peter rolled his eyes. "Anyway, I don't think you would like it," he answered._

_"Why?" she asked again._

_"Well... there is this moment of free fall. When you don't have any repulsors to coordinate as you fly. Only you and gravity," Peter explained as he drove._

_"My father would hate it," Morgan chuckled._

_Peter looked at her briefly with a raised brow._

_"I can't talk to my father directly, but I can talk to his tech, to his schemes. Every next Iron Man suit was more and more advanced about that. He hated to have no control over his body in the air," Morgan deduced._

_Peter smiled sadly._

This was so wrong that his daughter had to learn things about him from his technology, from things that he left behind. But... he couldn't say that she was wrong. She was damn right.

_He parked his car on the field before the house next to the lake, left the car, and looked at the lake._

_He had flashbacks from Tony's funeral._

_A lot of people dressed in black. Pepper holding a funeral bunch with Tony's first arc reactor in the middle of it._

_Proof that Tony Stark has a heart, it said._

Pepper sobbed; she couldn't hold her tears. They were getting some distracting memories, she almost managed to forget that Tony was going to die... but it hit her right now with doubled force. Seeing herself holding a funeral bunch...

The Avengers recognized this place as the place where Peter and Steve were talking before.

_Tony Stark was fighting some of Chitauri, but then Cull Obsidian punched him to the ground. Something... giant kicked him away and Peter ran to Tony._

_"Hey! Holy cow. You will not believe what's been going on. Do you remember when we were in space? And I got all dusty? I must've passed out, 'cause I woke up, and you were gone. But Doctor Strange was there, right? He was like, "It's been five years. Come on, they need us!" And then he started doing the yellow sparkly thing that he does all the time..." Peter started to babbling, as he always did._

_Tony just hugged him. Peter was shocked!_

_"What are you doing? ...This is nice," he decided after second of awkwardness._

_Peter sighed, looking at the lake._

_"Pete, are you going?" Morgan asked._

_"Yeah," he snapped out of his memories and went to the garage with Morgan._

Everybody noticed the change between young Peter and adult Peter. Teen Peter seemed to be so... talkative, full of life. They all could deduce that life after Tony's death was not easy for him.

The question needed to ask...

How the life of Peter Parker will look like in this timeline after the other one will leave...


	3. Chapter 3

Tony didn't know what to say; what to think. This was so messed up. Everything suggested that this boy really was from the future, really was his future intern. But he wasn't taking any interns! Well, Stark Industries had an interns program, but he was not part of it. That was mostly Pepper's business. But this man had become like a son of some kind for his future self. How... how could this... other Tony create that kind of bond? Would he be able to do that as well? Even now, when he knew the version of events?

_"Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement," Morgan and Peter sang while they waited for the holographic visualization of her project. They were standing in her dad's garage. It seemed to be all wooden, but it was only a cover for a pro-workplace. Morgan was pretending some device was a microphone. Peter started to laugh when he saw her doing that._

_Then, Pepper arrived._

_"Mom! Don't turn down my music!" Morgan said unhappily._

_Pepper looked at her with a little smile._

They all knew why future Pepper looked at her like that. Tony only gulped.

_"I was planning to cook something, but I thought that the two of you would prefer pizza and cheeseburgers," Pepper smiled gently._

_"Is this some kind of holiday? Bro, tell me that I didn't forget about my birthday again. No. No... it's not this month. So, what happened?" Morgan laughed and looked at her mom._

_Pepper rolled her eyes._

Tony looked at future Pepper with amazement. She truly was beautiful. Motherhood suited her well.

_"Maybe I decided that sometimes it is kinda pointless to fight with you two about health food," Pepper answered with a smile._

_Peter and Morgan looked at each other, wondering if whether to buy this answer. After second of staring at each other, they nodded simultaneously and looked at Pepper again. She left telling them to come soon while it was still warm._

_"How do you do that?" Morgan asked with a sad sigh._

_"What?" Peter looked at her, surprised._

_"Deal with that 'you did something Tony-like' look," Morgan sighed._

_Peter realized what she meant after a moment, but he needed a second to think about his answer_

_"I guess I'm used to it now. He was my mentor; I wanted to be like him; I picked up a lot of his habits...but I'm not Tony Stark. And I never will be. It was hard to be my own person when people saw me as Stark's Legacy. Some times, even after all these years, people come to me and tell me things that they wanted to say to Tony, but they can't... it's hard, but sometimes people need that, need to see something that they miss in somebody else. Even when you do the same things your father used to do... you're not him, and you never will be. You are your own, separate person, and you need to remember that," Peter answered honestly._

_She_ _was silent for a moment._

_"Come on, I want a cheeseburger now," Morgan responded, and they left the garage._

"She is very much like you," Steve admitted, and glancing at Tony with a small smile.

Tony didn't say anything. Rogers still didn't understand it, didn't know what it was like to grow up in the shadow. He didn't want to put his kids in that mess... Wait. His kids? Where the hell had that came from? Peter was not his intern; Morgan was not his daughter. Not yet, maybe never.

"It seems that Peter had... difficult life," Natasha said with a sad voice. "I wonder why he has such a hard time relating with the other Avengers...Wilson seems to be okay."

"Wait, you know this guy?" Tony asked Natasha. .

"Yeah... he's the Falcon," Steve answered.

"Huh, you have a new friend still didn't introduce him to your family? Rude," Clint teased.

 _Peter was standing in his office at Stark Industries and looking through the window with a beer in his hand. He sighed, then heard the voice of Edith informing him that Happy Hogan was arriving. He didn't say anything to this information_ _._

_Happy entered without knocking and looked at Peter._

_"Be my guest; you know where to find a beer," Peter shrugged._

_"What's on your mind, kid?" Happy asked, sighing. "Wilson was here again?"_

_Peter didn't answer, so Happy took that as a yes._

_"I know it's a stupid question; it is your decision to make, but why? You'd never told me why you didn't want to join the New Avengers Program."_

_Peter chuckled at the question._

Some different memories interrupted this one.

_Tony tapped Peter's shoulder like he was knighting him with a sword. The situation seemed pretty shitty._

_"You are Avenger now," he told Peter._

Then, a different memory-

_Nick Fury was glaring at Peter._

_"Stark gave you a multi-billion dollar AI tactical intelligence system. I told him that it's clear to me you were not ready for this," Fury said._

_"Stark chose you. He made you an Avenger. I need that. The world needs that. But maybe Stark was wrong. Was he?" Fury challenged in a different memory._

_"Tony was my best friend, but he was a mess. He second-guessed everything he did. He was all over the place. The one thing that he did that he didn't second-guess was picking you," Happy's voice was heard._

"I'm sorry," Tony murmured under his breath, but it didn't escape Pepper's attention or Steve's hearing.

"Why are you apologizing?" Steve asked.

"Because he has to live in my shadow as I was living in yours," Tony snapped angrily. He thought he had buried that anger a long time ago, because as he had to work with Steve, he realized that he could work with this man. But as soon as the words left Stark's mouth, he regretted them.

Steve looked shocked to the core.

The other Avengers not so much; for them everything was pretty obvious.

"And I don't second-guess everything!" Tony yelled, trying to change the subject.

"Yes, you do," Natasha, Clint, and Pepper said at the same time.

Steve just looked at Tony and sighed.

_Big stage. Cameras. Drones. A lot of people... really. One giant crowd. Peter Parker entered the scene. He was no longer the young, shy, bullied boy from Queens... that boy died a long time ago._

_He was giving a speech._

_"When I was in school, half of my class wanted to be like Tony Stark. Come on... Who of us didn't want to be like Tony, huh?" Peter asked the crowd, who responded noisily, shouting, 'I did', 'we all did', and so on._

_"He was a damn genius, the handsome one, had an amazing suit, was rich, was an Avenger, was the Hero of the Universe... everybody wanted to be like him," Peter chuckled, but there was a lot of bitterness in that though he hid it well. Now that he was in Tony's place, it was not as freaking amazing as he thought it would be._

_"Ten years ago, he sacrificed his life for the Universe's sake in this very spot. Many people fought against me when I decided to build this Science Center here. Sacrilege, they shouted, saying that I'm disgracing his memory. Well... I knew Tony quite well. He would want to be remembered as the human he was. Cheap trick and cheesy one liner kinda guy." When Peter said that, the crowd laughed._

_"Because that's what he was. Human. A brilliant one, granted, but still human. He was not super-soldier, he was not supernaturally gifted. He didn't have any training. All he was was a human who made mistakes, who was not flawless, but in the end, who did the right thing. People of Universe remember him as a Hero of the Universe, Thanos's Slayer, the man who made the Mad Titan bleed. And of course, he was all of this, but first of all... he was an engineer. Man of science. It was his genius that allowed the time heist to be possible, to reverse the blip, and it was his science that made Thanos bleed," Peter continued his speech._

Avengers (plus Pepper) just gaped at that memory. The speech that Peter was giving was... sublime, at least. But, then it came to them that of all of them, Tony had the least experience as a warrior; that Peter was telling truth. He was no supersoldier, no superspy, no god, no hulk. He was an engineer with his work of life.

"The Titans are dead," Thor said with a gulp. The possibility that there were still Titans was... concerning.

"Not all... one of them survived. The Mad Titan, Thanos," EDITH corrected. The people in the room had almost forgot about her presence.

Tony was about to say something, but Peter's speech continued.

" _I talk too much, right? Let me just say this... THE TONY STARK CENTER OF SCIENCE IS FINALLY OPEN," Peter announced and there were fireworks, screams, applause, and other crap._

_Then, he announced Morgan Stark, who was dealing with the artistic part of the opening, and left the stage. He looked at the Morgan, who was entering the scene with a smile._

_"Good work," Morgan said._

_"Good luck," he responded with a smile._

"When this is going to end?" Tony asked, trying to hide every emotion that was running through him right now. He didn't know how to deal with all of this crap; he kinda shut it out; he didn't want to know what or who Thanos was, that he is Thanos's slayer... no-no-no. No more of this crap. He wanted to pull Wanda away from Peter.

"I don't know. When Miss. Maximoff regains control of her magic, I suppose. She seems to be lost inside Peter's mind," EDITH answered.

"We need to pull her away somehow!" Tony shouted.

"No... please. I saw that happen once. It would do more harm than good," EDITH said with a sigh. "She needs to leave his mind on her own," she added.

"You sound... very emotional about this," Tony said suspiciously.

"I am last AI of Tony Stark, which he created to keep his loved ones safe. Would you program such an AI to be cold and calculated?" Edith challenged.

"Ouch... burn," Clint teased.

He created functional AI with feelings.

_"Boss... There is... little problem," some young man came and pointed at the scaffolding behind the scene. There was a barely visible figure in the dark._

_"I will handle this; no need to inform anybody more. Good job," Peter patted man's arm and swung onto the scaffolding above him. He came closer to the hooded figure in the dark. From a closer look, the past-Avengers could see that this figure had a sword strapped to his back._

"Oh my god," Natasha covered her mouth.

"What?" Clint asked.

_Peter was not in the position to attack, but he was not relaxed, either._

_"Did you come here as Hawkeye or as Ronin? Because I don't know if I should tease you or arrest you," Peter said, coming closer. The hooded man took away his hood, revealing his identity. It was Clint Barton. And he looked a hell a lot of different than in present._

_"_ How did you...?" Steve asked, looking at Natasha, realizing that she had recognized Barton before anybody else. She said nothing. She... just knew. The way that this man was standing, his figure... she couldn't explain this, she just knew.

"Dude, what with that hairstyle... you become edgy," Stark teased.

_"Will it please you if I come as Clint Barton, mini-Stark?" the man chuckled._

_"Well... I will take my chances," Peter came closer, leaning on the barrier._

_"We have had the time of our lives and I will not forget the faces left behind." They heard Morgan singing in the background._

_Clint looked like his heart was about to crack with all the emotions, but he was stood still._

_"So... what are you doing here?" Peter asked._

_"Well. I can't be with Thor and Banner down there; I don't wanna ruin your party, kid," Clint chuckled._

_"There are a limited number of people who know that you are Ronin," Peter shrugged it off._

_"I'm here for Tasha and Tony. After the opening and anniversary celebration, I'm going out with Thor and Banner," Hawkeye answered honestly._

_"It's hard to walk away from the best of days, but if it has to end, I'm glad you have been my friend in the time of our lives." Morgan's song reached their ears._

_"Reunion party?" Peter asked with a smile._

_"Yeah... We are going to get drunk and remember some of our friends. Make some theories about what happened to Steve," Clint shrugged._

_"You don't know?" Peter asked with surprise._

_Clint looked at him with a raised brow, like he wanted to say 'and you do?'._

_"I guess...Steve wanted to tell Tony, but couldn't, so he told me at the funeral. People do that a lot," Peter answered, looking at the stage below him. Barton was watching him, wondering if he should press the subject for more information..._

_"I don't envy you, kid," Clint said finally with a sigh. "Tony was a real diva, but even he wouldn't live up to his name right now..."_

_"And yet, people expect me to do it," Peter laughed bitterly. "You know that there are places in the universe where they worship him? Like Jesus?" Peter sighed._

_Barton was silent for a moment._

_"No, I didn't... but this is not surprising. People need to believe in something," Clint shrugged._

_Peter gulped, remembering the time when Mysterio had told him the exact same thing._

_"I better be going... It was good to see you, kid," Clint said with a smile._

_"There is your private ventrence," Peter smiled, showing him a way to the vents. Barton smiled; Peter looked away, and when he looked back at the same spot, Barton was already gone. Peter looked at his hand, which covered with one of his suits, which disappeared. There was a small drop of blood on his finger, but then his healing abilities kicked in and it was quickly gone._

_Parker put the glasses on._

_BLOOD TOXICITY: 11%_

* * *

Songs: Red Hot Chilli Peppers - Californication and Tyrone Wells - Time of our lives.

Here we go, another chapter! I hope you enjoyed it!

Thank you for all yours support, comments, kudos and subs, you are the best! :*

See ya in the next :*


	4. Chapter 4

Clint looked at his future self with confusion. Come on, he was an archer, he was Hawkeye. He didn't carry a sword. But it was part of this Ronin, part of the man that he was going to become. The assassin. A runaway.

He couldn't even be in public on the anniversary of Tony and Natasha's dead because he was a wanted man.

Steve was troubled when he realized that his future self didn't inform the rest of the team about his plans to use time travel, that he had left his team behind without a proper word or leave.

Pepper, Tony, and Natasha paled visibly when they saw the words _Blood Toxicity_ in the vision.

"He's livin' your life," Natasha said, her tone void of emotion, factual.

"What?" Steve asked, and looked at Tasha and then at Tony.

_"Sometimes I think that Tony will just rise from his grave to demand copyright, you know? That the thing that gives me powers is killing me at the same time." Peter chuckled bitterly to the holographic EDITH, who watched him with worry and compassion._

Yeah. Peter was aware of that, too.

"EDITH... is... he dying?" Pepper asked after she noticed that EDITH had dropped her half-transparent head and turned away. That was a freaking human thing to do. But she was AI. Pepper ha dealt with AI since she started to work for Tony. JARVIS had his moments, but nothing like this. _Maybe that's why Peter's here, to find out a cure or come to Tony for help_ , Pepper theorized.

"I'm not allowed to answer that question," EDITH answered.

Tony snorted.

"I did the same, after all... I banned JARVIS from informing you about my health status," Tony rolled his eyes and looked at Pepper.

"That was the stupidest thing you ever did!" Pepper yelled, remembering the moment when she had heard the conversation between Romanoff and Tony about dying, when she connected all dots and that terrible realization came.

"Flying into space with nuke wasn't it?" Tony teased and Pepper hit him gently in the chest, before becoming serious again. Because Tony was going to die... doing one of his "stupid things" again.

The Avengers just looked at them with a sad smile. Then Thor grunted, turning attention to him.

"What are you talking about, friend Stark? You were dying?" Thor asked, unaware of the adventures his comrades had had before the assemble.

"Didn't you read Tony's file?" Tasha asked with a raised brow.

"Tony hacked the SHIELD database ages ago when it was still standing. The 'Iron Man' lyrics are the only thing in his files," Banner explained, like he needed to state something so obvious. Tony only smirked.

"So... I'm new Jesus?" Tony asked, half-serious.

"You don't want to know. It would freak you out," Edith answered honestly. It was freaking out people close to Tony in her timeline, and they tried to fight it, but it became very strong.

Tony looked at EDITH with uncertainty. This AI was so... human that it was kinda scary, but it seemed that there were still some regulations to what she could say and what she could not. That was the more AI part of her. But on the other hand, if people really were worshiping him and his sacrifice in the future... did he want to know it?

_Peter walked from the Starks' lake house, approaching the lake were Pepper stood, staring at the calm waters. She was wrapped in a blanket to stay warm in the chilly evening._

_"Mrs. Stark," Peter said with a smile._

_"Peter, what are you doing here?" Pepper asked and looked at him as he stood next to her._

_"I drove Morg home," he shrugged. "Happy went to spend some time with May, so I offered to take care of Morgan," he added._

_"They're together again?" she asked, quite surprised._

_"You know how they are. Once they are, once they aren't." Peter chuckled and rubbed his eyes._

_"Are you okay with that? You know... she is your aunt," Pepper asked, concerned._

_"Well... in the beginning that was weird, but she's a grown woman, and she deserves some... happy in her life."_

_Pepper laughed when she heard Peter's choice of the words. Peter smiled, too._

_"And besides, it's not like she's my mother. She was always the cool aunt who took care of me... but the first motherly figure in my life would be you," Peter said, trying to sound natural. Pepper looked at him, quite shocked. She was not hiding that._

_" I... I don't know what to say," Pepper answered after a while._

_"You don't have to say anything. I wanted to say that," Peter smiled... and it was the moment that Pepper knew something was wrong. She had known Peter long enough to know that he didn't talk about his feelings without a reason._

_"When I returned from London, May was picking me up from the airport. She asked me about my luggage, but then she was like 'Oh right! It exploded! Let's go home,'" Peter said, trying to imitate May's voice._

_"That sounds like her," Pepper chuckled._

_"And when you learned about stuff like that... you usually panicked. You were worried if I was okay, even if I was standing right next to you," Peter added. "Aunt May was and always will be a cool aunt who took care of me, and she was very accepting of my superhero life and I was grateful for that...but when you showed up with your smothering motherly love, I didn't know how much I needed that in my life."_

_"Pete... is everything okay?" she asked, worried._

_"No-I mean, yeah. Everything is fine. It was just... you know. The moment," Peter chuckled. "I had this on my mind for some time. Anyway. What's on your mind, Mrs. Stark?" he asked, changing the subject._

_Pepper watched him for a moment in silence, then she looked at the lake._

_"I'm thinking of selling the house and moving to the city," she answered._

_Now it was Peter's turn to be shocked._

_"Why?" he managed to say. "This is your home."_

_"No... this is just a house... it stopped being home after Tony's death. He was the one who made this place feel like home. When he tried to ruin my kitchen. When we argued about his alpaca eating my veggie plants. It was our dream to run away from the city...but without him, it seems to be empty. For years I ignored that because I lived here with Morgan, but now that Morgan spends almost all her time outside the house, I could be closer to the company when you need some help," Pepper answered._

Tony looked at Pepper, imagined the life that her future self was describing in the memory. It was scary. Like all those situations. But still... he wanted to know more about it, he wanted to... life through that, even if this would mean that he would end his life like the Tony from Peter's timeline did.

_Peter only nodded and looked at the lake._

_"Do you think that Morgan will be okay with that?" Pepper asked. She knew that at this age, Peter would know better what was inside Morg's head better than she did._

_"I think that she will understand this. Maybe she will convince you to keep the house, maybe just moving to the city," he answered honestly._

_Pepper nodded in silence, but then Peter noticed tear on her cheek. He hugged her. She was always trying to be strong for everybody else. For him, for Morgan... she'd never had time to grieve, not really. For a long 10 years, she was grieving in silence._

_"Hey... I got you," Peter said with a smile._

_Pepper chuckled._

_A flashback-_

_Peter's web was stuck to Mjolnir, which was propelled high into the sky. Then a blue and silver Iron Suit flew to him and strong arms caught him._

_"Hang on, I got you, kid," Pepper said._

_-and return to Peter's lakeside memory._

_"Maybe that trip to Xandar will be good for you two; little bonding time," Peter suggested._

_"I'll think about it. Come inside, it's cold," Pepper replied, and they returned to the house, Peter one step behind her. He did the same thing he had at the anniversary ceremony. Glove from suit. Blood on his finger. Glasses on._

_BLOOD TOXICITY: 12%_

"He's going to do this. The kid is totally doing this," Tony said, unsure of how to react to the fact that the kid was behaving like him.

"What?" Bruce asked.

"Saying goodbyes," Pepper answered, shocked that Peter considered her as a mother. Well, Tony was his mentor, but it seemed that she was still part of the boy's life after Tony's death... and her daughter, her sweet little Morgan (because now Pepper couldn't see her future without having that girl in her life, it was already her Morgan) was calling him brother.

"I was the same. I was saying things, doing things, because I knew that my life was going to end," Tony sighed, glancing at Pepper.

"Why were you dying?" Steve asked guiltily. Tony didn't know why Steve should be guilty, but this was how he interpreted the emotion in his voice. Cap was feeling guilty that he didn't know such things about his teammate. He realized that he honestly didn't know anything about Tony's past.

"My first arc reactor was powered by palladium core," Tony said, and Bruce visibly paled, wanting to say something, but Ton silenced him with a hand. "Yes, I know it's poisonous. Like the kid said. Only in my case, the thing that was keeping me alive was killing me at the same time." Tony shrugged. Time went on.

"I hope that kid will be smarter than you were in those days," Natasha responded.

"I hope that as well, Natashalie," Stark sighed. Then, he looked at Pepper and EDITH.

_There was a big party. A lot of people wore suits and black ties...an then there was casually-dressed Morgan, who was rapping._

_Peter wasn't dressed as casually with a burgundy suit and a cream-colored turtleneck. He had, of course, his EDITH glasses perched on his nose. Peter walked across the room to see MJ, who was wearing a long, silvery dress. Her hair was tied up, but a few strands were lying on her bare arms. She looked wonderful. Everything beside her was irrelevant, blurred. Music was somewhere in the background, but MJ was the only thing that Peter could really see._

Clint allowed himself to wolf whistle.

"Hold your horses, Legolas, right now she's probably in kindergarten," Tony smiled.

_Peter came closer._

_"MJ, you look..." Peter couldn't find the right word. Sometimes, around M.J, he was still that goofy teen._

_"Ridiculous?" she suggested, her voice 100% serious._

_Peter chuckled. "I had something different in mind," he responded._

_"Trust your sister to do a serious charity party for a bunch of losers," MJ said, watching Morgan perform._

_"That's Morgan, and that's why people love her. You can't ever predict what she'll do. Besides... this is her 'last party on earth'," he answered with a smile._

_"So, they're going on that trip to Xandar?" MJ asked._

_"Yeah, for a few months. Visiting our branch there, and then they're going on holidays." Peter shrugged. He glanced at Morgan, who started "Gangsta's Paradise" on the stage. She was spending too much time on YouTube, searching for old tunes._

"I don't remember having a branch on a place called Xandar. It sounds like something in Africa." Tony lifted his brow questioningly. Pepper looked at him, wanting to say something, but then Thor interrupted.

"It's not on Midgard. This is a planet," Thor frowned.

"Yes. Mr. Odinson is correct. Xandar is a planet. In our timeline, Stark Industries is considered one of the largest companies in the universe," Edith answered casually.

Wow.

Just. Wow.

_"Dork, something wrong?" MJ asked._

_"Can we talk? Privately?" he suggested._

_When they were outdoors, everything became blurred. Like there were some problems with watching this memory._

_"_ What's happening?" Bruce asked.

"Emotions are affecting the memory," Edith answered.

_"I'm living life do or die. What can I say? I'm twenty-three now, but will I live to see twenty-four? The way things is going, I don't know," Morgan rapped in the background._

_"I slept with Felicia," Peter stated casually, and MJ stared at him with shock and pain in her gaze._

_Then she walked away._

_"Tell me why are we so blind to see, that the ones we hurt are you and me," Morgan sang._

_Peter felt a tear on his cheek._

_"Been spending most their lives living in a gangsta's paradise."_

_Peter hissed with pain, grabbing a barrier so that he wouldn't collapse._

"What was that?!" Steve asked. He didn't understand what had just happened in that memory.

"He's dying... He broke up with his girlfriend, telling that he betrayed her because he prefers her to hate him than see her pain when he dies," Tony answered. The longer he was watching these memories, the better he knew what the kid probably thought during that.

Pepper just shook her head. They had talked about it in the past, about why Tony had stepped back from her after the fight with Stane. He already knew that something was wrong with him. It seemed that Peter was already in a relationship, so... he needed to find another way to step back.

And... she was a mother to this boy in the future.

A mother that he would send on the faraway planet while he was dying.

_Ned was carrying him to his apartment. Peter was drunk and bugging everybody on the way. Ned looked like he had enough._

_"_ There it is. A friend who will be sent away, too," Tony shrugged. God. It was really like the kid was living his life. It was freaking scary.

Avengers knew that Tony didn't see Peter and his friend; he saw himself and Rhodey.

" _Woo hoo. It's like ol' timess," Peter yelled drunkenly._

_"I don't remember in the old times that I had to carry your drunk ass. And I run into MJ. Really? Sleepin' with Felicia? Man, what's wrong with you?" Ned put him on the couch and looked at him._

_He was tired of Peter. Angry at him. He loved his friend, but this Peter... was not the Peter he knew._

_"What can I say... I fell for that tight black spandex suit," Peter chuckled._

_Ned raised his hands in a gesture of defeat._

_"I don't know what to happened with you, man. I've been your friend since kindergarten and I don't recognize you anymore," Ned shook his head._

_"Stop with that gibberish... come, have a drink," Peter rose from the couch and went to the table for alcohol._

_"No, you had enough," Ned grabbed his arm, but Peter caught his wrist with his superstrength. Then he pulled it away. Ned hissed with pain and caught his hand. He was almost sure that Peter broke something in his wrist._

_I'm done with you, man... I'm done," Ned said, and walked away._

_The moment the door closed, Peter sobered immediately. Or... he was never drunk in the first place. He dropped his jacket during his walk toward to mirror, then pulled his collar down gently, revealing one big, ugly, infected wound on his neck._

_Flashback-_

_He was much younger. Like the age he was in the memories with Tony. Maybe even younger. He had lab coat on, and a red spider sat on his neck. It bit him, and he automatically killed it._

_-Return._

_"Was that necessary?" Holo-EDITH showed up. Peter looked at her._

_"Did you finish the tests?" He didn't answer her question._

_"Yes," she answered._

_"Come on, I'm already aware that I'm dying. You can't have worse news," Peter rolled his eyes._

_"Your pain this evening... this means that your kidneys are shutting down," EDITH answered. "That gives you even less time," she admitted with sadness in her voice._

_"How much?" he asked._

_"If the mutation will progress like it was before...a week. Maybe less," EDITH replied. She wanted to say something else, but Peter murmured softly, "Mute" and then he went to the window, looking at the city._

_"I wanted you to be better." The words rang again in his head._

Everybody was silent in the room. They hung down their heads. Poor kid... well everybody except Tony. His mind was working, how this happened, what kind of spider it was. He seemed to be much younger. Why was this spider bite important to what was happening years later? How he could help him? He didn't even know if the kid was still dying or if it was past mattering.

"You allowed Rhodey to steal your suit, didn't you?" Natasha realized, looking at Tony.

"Yeah. I didn't want bury idea of Iron Man with me," he admitted. He didn't even know why he was so honest with everyone right now.

"Peter always knew that his friend was afraid that the money would change him and that MJ was jealous of Black Cat. Peter used that to push them away," EDITH explained. "Peter just knew where to push to get the result. Like Tony did."

"Black Cat?" Clint raised his brow.

"Felicia," Edith clarified.

_Peter, Morgan, and Pepper were standing on some cliff when a spaceship landed next to him. The Guardians of the Galaxy stepped out of it. They greeted each other, laughed for a while. They were Pep and Morg's ride to Xandar. Stark Industries had their vehicles, but Guardians offered to take them. Peter knew that Nebula just wanted to see Pepper and Morgan._

_"Take care of them, will you?" Peter said with a smile, looking at Nebula._

_"They're family," Nebula shrugged like it was obvious. Peter noticed that she was still using her IronArm._

_"One crazy Iron Family," Peter chuckled. "When you return, I'm counting on some kind reunion," he said, knowing that there probably would be one. On his funeral._

_Nebula only smiled slightly. Pepper came and started babbling about being careful and everything. Peter only smiled and said that he would be fine, have fun._

_"_ No kid, you won't be," Pepper said with a sad voice.

"Who is she? That blue chick," Tony asked.

"That would be Nebula. You already saw her during the memory where Peter turned into dust," EDITH explained. She didn't have a lot to say, and her programming didn't allow her to say much, but she was doing as much as she could, knowing that there was no turning back now. She couldn't pretend that she didn't have knowledge about the future.

"Why does she believe that we are her family?" Pepper asked.

"I can't say much about it. But... you always had this gift to bring... unique individuals close and make them feel like a family," Edith answered, looking at Tony, shrugging.

Tony frowned.

"She's right," Banner admitted with a little smile. Tony was the first person in his life that didn't know him before (like Betty did) and was never afraid of Hulk. Nah, he was poking him, checking if he was going hulk out. Bruce never said it, but he valued that.

_Peter was walking down the corridor of his company compound when he stopped close to the doors. He looked at it. "Harley Keener, the main director of RSSI" it read on a plaque._

Tony looked shocked.

"Do you know this Harley?" Thor asked.

"Yeah... we met," Tony gulped.

_Flashback-_

_"Do you think that he would want this?" Harley asked, looking at Peter._

_"There is no better operator of Iron Suit than you... the only question is... if you are ready for it?" Peter answered honestly._

_-Return._

_Peter asked Edith to open the doors, then he walked to the desk. Jeez. That man was messy. Peter pulled out some box from a pocket in his jacket and looked at it._

_Flashback-_

_Peter looked at Fury, who was holding the same box, giving it to him. He took it and opened it. Inside was the note and pair of glasses._

_"For the next Tony Stark, I trust you. - Tony"_

_-Return._

_Peter placed the glasses in the box where the same note lay and closed it, leaving it on the desk. Then he left. When he walked back to his lab, he felt his knees giving out and something wet on his lips before he tasted the salty tang of blood. Then he fell to the ground._


	5. Chapter 5

He had a gift for creating family the pieces left behind by others? Him?! Edith and Bruce, they had to be joking. He barely knew family values. They were just kidding him with that. Then that whole mess with... BARF glasses? Now he recognized them. He had started to use that technology in the future again, huh. Still, the kid was dying in those fucking visions, but that made him calm down a little. Since it was that bad in his memories... it couldn't still be a thing now. He fought well against them, not like a guy who was going to die any second. But still... the way that kid was handling stuff.

 _God, kid... you really need a better role model,_ Tony thought.

He had called him the "next Tony Stark". His future self saw Peter as his successor. And Harley was the new pilot of Iron Man suit? What was going to happen with this world now that he knew what was going to pass?

Well... it seemed like it would be in good hands.

"That blue woman before, she was using an arm made with materials similar to the ones Tony uses for his suits," Bruce pointed out, like now was the time for that.

"That arm was made from one of the Iron Man suits. It was Nebula's way of honoring Tony's memory," Edith answered.

Some of the Avengers and Pepper stared at him. _Now is not the time for this,_ he thought.

_A young Peter was sitting with Ned and they were building something with Legos; they were laughing, but there was no sound in this memory._

"What is that?" Thor asked.

_Little Morgan was running away from him, but he caught her. Peter started to giggling at her, and they laughed._

_"_ Life is flashing before his eyes," Tony murmured.

_He and Harley were eating some Chinese food in the lab, working on something. They started throwing stuff at each other, laughing._

_\- "Parker? Parker! Shit! Damn it!" a voice yelled. -_

"Someone found him," Natasha said, guessing that this voice was not part of the flashback, that it was something from his reality.

_He and May were somewhere outside, talking and eating._

"Who is she?" Pepper asked.

"Maybe that aunt he mentioned," Clint suggested and looked at Edith, who nodded for confirmation.

_There was some kind of party. Rhodey, Pepper, Happy, May, Morgan, Harley, Nebula, and of course, Peter, were there. He saw Nebula playing paper football with Morgan, before he and Harley made bets on solving the Rubik's cube. They looked at cubes and started to solving it behind their backs. Everybody else was cheering on one or the other. They were all a big, happy family._

_\- "Edith! What should I do?!" the voice from before hissed. -_

Tony looked at this memory with awe, now understanding what Edith meant... he brought all of them together... and they stuck with each other even after his death.

"Someone is going to save him," Pepper assured, holding Tony's hand.

"Yeah... for now," he whispered and closed his eyes. "Even if he was saved from whatever health issue there was, he will be still dying from something bigger. We don't know what, but I guess that this is no longer a thing," Tony added.

"How do you know that?" Steve asked.

 _'Cuz he's here, you moron,_ Tony thought, but he managed to hold his tongue.

"Because otherwise, he would already be dead. No one would send him on a mission here. Didn't you notice that? He's here on some kind of mission in the past, Edith said, that he has maybe a week of living. Dying part is no longer an issue for this guy, I can assure you," Tony sighed.

Everybody looked at Edith, searching for confirmation.

"I can't say anything about Peter's health status," Edith answered. "But I can say that Peter likes to say 'Tony was always right.'" Edith smiled slightly.

"Cheater," Tony smirked, looking at his AI. He had programmed her after all, in the future. She was using a loophole in Peter's order. Smart.

"What can I say? Peter is as stubborn as you are and as my creator was. Things are not easy with him; I needed to adapt," Edith answered and sighed.

Yeah. Tony was going to die. At least, he died in Peter's future. The little reminder they needed. They were clouded by Peter's dying that they forgot about that.

_\- Blood was dripping from Peter's lips. Everything was so light. -_

_Peter looked at Tony. They were sitting on the sofa. Peter had a bowl of popcorn, which was almost empty. They were arguing over something, but arguing with a smile. Tony ruffled Peter's hair and smiled again. That was one hell of a smile. An honest one. Tony's eyes were bright, happy. His lips smiled widely, showing his white teeth._

"I've never seen you smile like that," Pepper said, smiling herself.

"I don't smile like that," he answered.

Edith smiled a little bit, too. This Tony Stark didn't have a reason to smile like that... yet. That was his "family smile", as Mrs. Stark liked to call it.

_\- "Hey! Wake up, Parker!" the voice yelled. -_

"Who the hell is that? I know that voice," Steve said, but he couldn't remember to whom that voice had belonged. It was a little changed, warped because of Peter's semi-conscious state, but he knew that voice. He was certain of it.

_\- "You want me to do WHAT?!" the voice yelled. -_

_Peter, Harley, Morgan, and two other girls unknown to the Avengers were dancing to "Echame la culpa"._ _It seemed to be spontaneous thing. Morgan was wearing pyjamas with unicorns, Harley and Peter looked like they rolled out of the bed, and the other two girls didn't look any better._

Clint looked at the two other girls. Wait. One of them seemed to be familiar.

Avengers smiled; it was nice to see that kid had some good memories.

_Then Peter woke up. He opened his eyes, looking at bright ceiling, before narrowing his eyes. God, he felt like absolute shit._

_"You should rest," Edith said in a calm, synthetic voice._

_Not that Peter listened to her. He sat down and looked around to see... James 'Bucky' Barnes himself, sitting in the chair next to Peter's lab desk._

"Bucky," Steve said in awe.

"How is that possible?" Tony looked at Steve.

"Sergeant Barnes was saved by HYDRA and they made him brainwashed assassin called the Winter Soldier," Natasha explained, watching Steve, who was staring at the Bucky in the vision.

"You're shitting me. Barnes is the Winter Soldier? THIS WINTER SOLDIER?" Clint looked at Natasha like she had three heads.

"Yeah," Natasha answered, still watching Steve.

_Peter wasn't so enthusiastic to see Barnes._

_"What the hell are you doing here?" he hissed._

"I guess my kid doesn't like your buddy," Tony said, not realizing even then that he had called Peter his kid. Pepper and a few others noticed, and smiled a bit to this.

_"Fury sent me. 'When his ol' man was pulling off stunts like this, he was dying. I want to know that is inside that kid's head! Go, now,' he told me," James answered and looked at Peter._

_"And of all of the people in the world, he sent you," Peter rolled his eyes._

_"It was me or Sam," Bucky replied._

_Peter only stared at him for a second, deciding that out of bad or worse, he preferred James over Sam._

_"Was it Fury or his reptile twin?" Peter laughed bitterly, but regretted it. God, the pain. He touched his chest, noticing that there were bandages over it._

_"Careful, I'm no doctor. But lucky for you, I have steady hands and Edith is a good instructor." Bucky didn't answer Peter's question._

"Reptile twin?" Natasha raised her brow.

"I can't say," Edith answered.

"O. My. God. Reptilians are a real thing," Clint said sarcastically, but then he looked at Edith who looked like she was trying to say "you're not entirely wrong there". She was just kidding, right?

_"It's all for nothing... only delaying inevitable," Peter sighed and rose from the table he was lying on and walked slowly to the place where he had a few extra t-shirts in his lab._

_"What's wrong with you?" Bucky asked simply. Peter didn't answer. Bucky just shook his head and looked at the kid. "Parker. We are worried," he sighed._

_"We? Who? You and your buddy Sammy?" Peter snorted._

_"All of us," Bucky answered, trying to keep eye contact with Parker, but he was avoiding it._

_"If you are here to try to pull me into New Avengers Team, as you can see... I'm not in the state to pull off that shit," Peter smiled sarcastically._

_Bucky decided that he needs to change the tactic if he wants to know anything form Parker._

_"I'd never understood that, you know? You took Tony's place in his company, in the world, but not in the Avengers," Bucky said, looking at Peter._

"Why is he changing the subject? He should pressure about Peter's health," Thor frowned.

"If he kept pressure, Peter would shut up. Keeping him talking about something else may bring the answers that Barnes needs," Natasha explained quickly. She knew these kind of games.

Steve was still staring. Bucky would be okay. He would come back from that dark state of mind.

_"The team is great, but... everybody knows that it won't be a team without you in it," Bucky added. "Sam is doing his best in his Captain America role, but... well." Barnes didn't know how to put this._

_"Stark was always a counter to Steve, that's why the first Avengers team worked," James said, looking at Parker._

The Avengers needed a second to think about that. Steve looked at Tony; Tony looked at Steve. The others just looked at them. There was some truth in it. Cap was the leader, but without Tony to have a second opinion, it would be... they couldn't find the right word to describe it. Steve just needed Tony in this team in some way. The person who wouldn't be afraid to the question his decisions, who could say to his face that he didn't agree with him. Not that others would be afraid to do so, but... it wouldn't be in the way that Tony could do it. They didn't have time to talk about it...

_Peter snorted._

_"And where did that position lead him, huh?" Peter chuckled darkly. "I didn't take Tony's place in Avengers because it is the shittiest place in the world to be," he added after a moment, pulling on a shirt._

Tony frowned.

_Bucky wanted to say something, but Peter talked over him._

_"When the Avengers were victorious, they were all taking credit... but when they screwed up, it was Tony's mess to deal with._ _Do you even know what SRF is?" Peter asked, looking at Barnes._

_Barnes raised his brow._ _"Sam calls them when there's a mess to clean after the fight."_

_"Do you know what the letters stand for?" Peter pressed._

_Barnes looked at him, waiting for information... because honestly, he didn't know._

Tony raised his brow again. He was not sure if he was right, but it would be...

_"Stark Relief Foundation," Peter snorted, taking his tablet to see his health results now after... whatever Barnes did to him. "It's funny, ironic. You calling my Foundation to clean your mess, and you don't even know it's me who pays the bills."_

_"And it was similar in the previous Avengers Team. It was Tony who was cleaning up the mess, it was Tony who had to face angry politicians after every fight, it was Tony who was getting all the complaints. And what he got in exchange?" Peter snorted again._

_Barnes was shocked... but he saw also that it was weighing down the kid's heart._

_"So, you don't want to..." Barnes began, but Peter interrupted._

_"I don't wanna end up dying in Siberia, killed by someone I thought was my friend," Peter snapped._

_Flashback -_

_Vision rushed to Tony, who lying on the ground. There was snow surrounding them, and Tony looked dead, frozen. There was blood bubbling up around_ _his broken reactor. Captain America's shield was next to him...and there was blood on it. And the arc reactor's dent was shaped exactly like the edge of the shield._

_"Peter! We need to move him...Peter!" Vision was trying to get to the kid, but he was standing there, paralyzed._

_\- Return._

"What the hell!" Steve yelled, horrified by that sight. That... he wouldn't... no. He refused to believe in that. Tony turned pale at seeing himself in that shape. Pepper squeezed his hand like she needed to make sure that he was still here.

Clint wanted to point out language, but this was too damn serious.

"I... I've never known that Peter was there," Edith said, shocked.

"THERE? Where?!" Steve asked.

"I can't answer that... but I think that the memory will," Edith answered, clearly troubled.

_Barnes paled visibly. It looked like guilt was eating him alive. He gulped._

_"I... thought that Stark didn't tell anybody about what happened in Siberia," James said to Peter._

_"He didn't have to. I always knew."_

_They sat in silence for a moment._

"Sooo... are you going to kill me?" Tony asked Steve.

"No! How you can think that?!" Steve seemed to be horrified that Tony could even think that way. But then he looked at the memory... how else he could interpret that memory? There was his shield, dripping with Tony's blood.

Tony sighed and looked away. He was not a person who trusted easily, but he thought that he could trust Rogers at least with guarding his back... it seemed that he was going to be betrayed again.

_"If my brain was not Swiss cheese, I would solve it differently," Barnes sighed hard._

_"What do you think about changing the team? Well. I can welcome you on Team Iron Man. That arm is Stark Tech, so you fulfill the conditions." Peter put down his tablet. The results were blurred, and the past-Avengers couldn't read it._

_"Right now I'm on Team "this shit could be solved without a fight". I wish I could have just tied both of them down and made them talk this shit out," Bucky sighed._

_"Well... I guess that is the healthiest team to be," Peter nodded._

_He went to the carafe with the "whiskey" and poured it into one glass, then he took another one and poured some into the other glass._

_"_ Team Iron Man? So... I guess the other team was Team Captain America?" Clint guessed and looked at Edith, but she didn't react.

" _You shouldn't be drinking..." James said softly._

_"It's tea," Peter shrugged as he took a sip and gave the other glass to James. "This is whiskey."_

_James didn't need to check; he could smell it. When he took the glass and pushed it away, he could smell that in the other glass there was only tea._

_"Tony taught me that trick. Do you know how hard a boozing and womanizing reputation is to keep?" Peter chuckled and took another sip of his tea._

Avengers looked at Tony, shocked. Natasha rushed to the table where was the whiskey was and checked their contents. One was whiskey...another was tea. She raised the tea one and looked at the team.

"Tea?" Clint asked.

Tasha nodded. They all looked at Stark, but he didn't have time to answer.

_"So... Stark didn't have a drinking problem at all?" James raised his brow._

_"Nah. It's a public thing. Surprisingly, it is easier to pull off this job when people think that you are drunk. Not that Tony didn't like to have a drink sometimes, but well... it was occasional," Peter shrugged._

_Barnes took a sip of his whiskey and looked at Peter's desk, which he was sitting next to. It seemed to be empty; he knew that everything here would be holographic, so he was not surprised. There was only a framed picture on the desk._

_"Is it that the legendary photo?" Barnes asked, looking at a picture of Tony and Peter. They had seen that picture before. The one with Peter holding the certificate wrong way. Peter chuckled._

_"Yeah, it is. Mobius strip reversed one," Peter smiled sadly._

"What?" Tony raised his brow and looked at Edith, for the moment forgetting about dying in Siberia. It was kinda easy to forget when he knew that he was going to die another way, and... there was so much information at once that even his brain couldn't follow them all at once.

"My creator created a time traveling machine inspired by that picture. Reversed diploma, reversed Mobius strip," Edith answered.

_Barnes sighed and looked at Peter._

_"Do you think that they won't put things together when you die a few days after you made everybody turn away from you?" James asked and looked at Peter with a serious voice. It was time to talk about the elephant in this room._

_"Oh... I know they will. They will be angry, they will feel guilty that they didn't notice this sooner, but they won't be there when I will die, drowning in my own blood," Peter shrugged._

_"What's wrong, Parker?" he asked softly._

_"I'm dying," Peter chuckled bitterly. "My mutation is turning against me. My own body is killing me. There is nothing that can be done. So if you would be so good as to make yourself leave so the last thing I see wouldn't be your face..." Peter answered._

_"I saved you," Barnes pressed the subject._

_"Just for now. My kidneys, my lungs, my heart, my brain... sooner or later they will give up. It's a lottery about which one will do that first. You wanna bet?" Peter smiled, but Barnes didn't have a sense of humor... or that was shit was too serious to be laughed off in Stark's way._

_"Let me say this for once and for all. I won't join the Avengers team. I was already Avenger once. If I join a new team... it will lead to another Civil War. Sam is idealist like Rogers was. I'm rationalist, like Tony. You said it yourself. We are what our mentors made us be... and I won't repeat their mistakes. I can see it, you know? You would be team Captain America again, probably so would be Wanda and Kristen. Robbie, Kamala, and Lily would be team Spider-Man. Can't you see it?" Peter asked and looked at Barnes, who was shocked to hear such reason. Before Barnes could say something, Peter continued_

_"I don't believe in the Avengers as a team against all odds. Everybody tells me that Natasha and Clint were such great friends... you know when I saw them for the first time? When they were fighting against each other... because she was team Iron Man, he was Team Captain America."_

Natasha and Clint looked at each other.

"It seems that we will have some issues in the future," Thor said.

"Not we... It's between me and Tony." Steve said what he already knew. "Peter said that you were Team Iron Man, and you were Team Captain America," Steve said, looking at Tasha, then at Clint.

"And the rest of the Avengers needed to pick a side," Tony said, looking at Steve.

It was strange... Like they could predict that this was possible, but there was no anger about that because it didn't happen yet. But both of the men looked at each other with some... respect. Even if they were just told that they would want to hurt each other.

_"This is not about Avengers. It's about you. Do you really think that there is nothing that can be done?" Barnes asked._

_For the first time in this conversation, Peter's face softened a little bit._

_"No. I checked all possible ways," Peter sighed. "Do you think that I wanna die? No, I don't. But I know a pointless fight when I see one." Peter turned tense and defensive again._

_"From what Fury told me, Tony saw his fight as lost cause too... but he didn't give up in the end. Will you?" Bucky challenged._

_"You don't understand. There is no new element to create. There is no secret message from the grave. There is nothing. The spider that bit me is dead. Data about it is burned. There is nothing, and then there is me. My mutation that I can do nothing about. So shut up and don't compare me to Tony, because I'm not him, and I will never be half as good as he was," Peter yelled, but then he felt a little bit worse. He needed to sit down; he put a hand on his heart. Damn, that hurt._

"It seems that Miss Maximoff is getting more control," Edith answered.

Avengers looked at her like she was speaking in an alien language now. They all thought about Civil War, Peter's dying from mutation, and she was talking about Wanda. Ah... right. Wanda was still hooked up to Peter's brain.

"How you can know that?" Bruce asked.

"Memories are less misplaced that they were before. In the beginning, we were seeing snatches of it. This is a concrete, long memory," Edith explained.

"So... Wanda will stop this soon?" Steve asked.

"That I don't know. I do know that now she has control," Edith answered.

_Barnes left._

_Peter sat alone in his lab, looking at the legendary picture that changed the universe._


	6. Chapter 6

**Beta Reader:** Alia275

* * *

They didn't even know where to start talking. There was too much information at one time. A civil war. Steve leaving Tony to die, and whatever the hell was going to happen between them. Their relationship was not always wonderful, but it was much better than in the beginning.

"EDITH... do you know why?" Tony asked, glancing at the hologram and then at Steve, who was pale.

"I can't say. I can't say anything that could be considered as historical knowledge... So I can't say the reasons for the Civil War. But Siberia... it was not because of the same reasons that the Civil War happened. It was personal. Boss could handle a lot of things... but betrayal was never one of them," EDITH answered, watching Steve.

"Are you suggesting that I...betrayed Tony? How?" Steve asked. He still couldn't wrap his mind around this. He wouldn't betray Stark.

Holo-Edith looked at Steve. She just looked. And he knew, she knew, and Tony would know. That was this betrayal. He was planning to tell him, he had tried a few times, but it just wouldn't leave his lips. He guessed that he would never find the courage to tell Tony, but he would still learn the truth, if not from him.

"Are you planning to share with the class?" Clint asked.

"I..." Steve looked down. How did he say this? "I don't know how to say this." He snorted bitterly and looked at Edith, who returned his gaze gently.

"You tried to hide this from Tony to spare him in my Universe. You saw how it ended. You have a chance to do better now," she shrugged and glanced at Tony.

"So. Steve already is doing something, that I will later consider as a betrayal." Stark felt like he had just been punched in the face.

"Tony... we need to talk. Alone. Now," Steve decided.

Steve didn't know what exactly happened in the Siberia; he couldn't find a reason why he would leave Tony to die. But Edith had confirmed that this was about Bucky...and he didn't want it to happen. The memory of Peter seeing barely alive, Tony, and his own shield, made by Tony's father and streaked with Tony's blood, shook him enough.

Tony didn't know how to react. Did he want to talk alone with the man that was going to try to kill him? He knew that if Wanda was not abusing Peter's mind, they wouldn't have learned about it and Steve would continue doing... whatever he was doing. He looked at Pepper, who was holding his hand. She let him go and nodded. Hoping that they could talk about it and stop it from happening.

"Well... if I don't come back, you know who is to blame," Tony tried to joke. Then, he and Steve left the room.

Edith sighed.

"It was that bad?" Thor asked Edith.

"Mr. Barnes in memory was correct. This could be talked off. But... it was the wrong place and definitely the wrong time," Edith answered. Ultron, Peggy's death... it was a hard time for both of them.

They stood in silence for a few seconds. Surprisingly, none of Peter's memories were showing up. Maybe Wanda was close to leaving Peter's mind?

"Tea? Really? Fucking tea?" Natasha looked at what should be whiskey.

Edith smiled.

"Are you angry that you didn't see through him? With all your abilities to manipulate people, to read people..." Edith mocked. She was well aware of the SHIELD report, made by Romanoff.

Natasha didn't know what to say. Did the AI just... mock her? Before she could say anything, Pepper sighed.

"Not many people know that. I believed in it for a long time too," she shrugged.

She knew Tony well enough to know about this kind of stuff. Sometimes it was her who made this bloody tea. They've never talked about it; she could guess the reasons behind it. They always saw a drunk jerk. Tony's too-good cover destroyed the man.

"Why?" Clint asked, but Pepper didn't have time to answer, because Peter's memories showed up again.

_Peter was sitting still, looking at the picture of him and Tony, when everything started to shake and there were some terrible noises outside. Peter murmured something about dying in peace and he went to the window. He saw signs of hell of a fight in the city center. The nano-spider suit showed up on his skin. The window opened and Peter jumped through and swing away._

"No! Shit. Whatever happens, he shouldn't go there. He is freaking dying," Clint yelled at the memory.

"Not that it stopped Tony before," Natasha sighed to Pepper, who grimaced.

_Peter landed at the roof of some building close to the fight. He saw the Avengers. Wilson was in the skies, looking down to attack. Bucky, Lila, and Kamala were saving civilians, while Robbie and Jennifer were fighting against some people clothed in black._

The past-Avengers were shocked to see the new team in combat. Of course, the biggest surprises to them were Ms. Marvel, Ghost Rider, and She-Hulk.

"Did... she just change into a trampoline?" Pepper asked. She had seen some strange things, but that was... weird.

"That's Hulk... but female?" Bruce raised his eyebrows.

"I was not aware of Ghost Rider's presence on Midgard," Thor commented.

Edith just hid her face in her holo-hands, then she looked at the living beings in this room.

"Yes, Ms. Marvel changed into a trampoline. That's She-Hulk. And Mr. Odinson, history of the Ghost Riders on Earth is quite long," the AI answered with a sigh. She wasn't happy with the information that was revealed in the memories. This was getting worse and worse with every memory. Creating a screw-up alternate universe was not their point in this time travel.

_"Captain, what the hell is going on?" Peter asked and swung closer to the fight._

_"Spider? You shouldn't be here," Barnes answered, clearly confused and worried._

_"What the hell are you talking about?" Wilson yelled at Barnes, before addressing Peter. "Nothing good, Parker, as always. Want a piece of it?" Sam replied._

_"Ohhh... you kept a piece for me? So nice of you!" Peter taunted and joined the fight against six people, all dressed completely in black. How they could see anything in those black masks, that's unknown!_

_Peter felt like shit, but it was not the time for his weakness. Captain threw his shield into one of the black figures. When it was about to hit his target, the villain just... phased, Vision-style and the shield went through hi, without doing him any harm, but when shield was still in the air, Peter caught it in his webs and spun it hard, covering it with a lot of webs, then threw at the same figure._

_"Scorpion!" Peter yelled, calling Robbie to help him and add something to their combo._ _**(A/N: Scorpion is a reference to the Mortal Kombat games; I'm not talking about Scorpion from Marvel)** _

_"GET OVER HERE!" Robbie yelled back, using his 'Ghost Rider voice' and using his chains, he set hellfire to the webs on the shield, making it one, big fireball. It hit this time, sending him into a building that collapsed under the figure in black._

_"_ Wow! That's a combo!" Clint said, impressed. "I should be worried about this skull guy, but damn. He looks cool!" he added.

_"What are these guys' problems?" Peter asked as he was pulled into close combat with another one masked figure._

_"We don't know. We call them the Sinister Six. They don't speak, just attack," Lila explained. "Shit! We need backup; their big guy joined our party. We have a lot of civilians!" she yelled._

_"She-Hulk will smash them!" Jennifer answered and went to help Lila, Bucky, and Kamala. Robbie, Wilson, and Peter stayed, engaging and distracting the other two of the Six. Peter was fighting with the one, Robbie and Wilson were keeping the other one, who was much, much bigger, occupied, when Peter began to feel weaker and weaker with every movement he made._

At that moment, Steve and Tony came back from wherever they were. Steve had a fresh bruise on his cheek. They were dead serious when they returned at their spots, looking at the memory that was shown.

"What did we miss?" Tony asked, voice cool.

The rest looked at each other, then at Tony and Steve.

"Are you two are cool?" Clint asked.

"No," they both answered at the same time. "But maybe we will be... one day," Tony added and Steve looked at him with hope.

"Well... your son went to fight while he's dying, and we saw this New Avengers team," Thor answered the previous question.

Tony wanted to say that this is not his son, but he bit his tongue, so he talked about something else.

"We leave for a few minutes and we miss so much?!" he grumbled.

"Are you going to tell us what happened?" Bruce asked, looking at Steve.

Cap sighed.

"We'll talk later," Steve answered. He had talked it off with Tony, that was enough for now. If Peter's memory faded, they would talk about it, but Tony knew now. He had learned it from him, even if that was pressed on him.

_"Fighting with us is pointless. We are inevitable," Peter's opponent spoke. And he had thought that Lila said that they didn't speak!_

_"Well, we'll see when you end up like your friend," Peter answered, talking about the dude who was under the building. The dark figure laughed and then he pushed Peter away forcefully, using purple energy._

_"That man was forged in the hottest place on his planet and hardened where it's the coldest. The building won't stop him," the figure answered with a mocking tone. These words seemed to be familiar, but Peter was not in the right state to think about it. He barely could put himself together after that blow._

"Shit. This is right after this talk with Bucky, right?" Tony asked. "He shouldn't be fighting," Stark murmured.

_Then, like on a wish, the other black figure blew out from under the collapsed building and flew into the sky before landing next to their teammate and nodding a little, murmuring something under their breath. The other answered, but Peter had difficulty understanding. He just saw two guys, standing before him._

_"_ What is this, 'Tasha?" Steve asked the redhead.

"I dunno... It seems familiar," she answered. "Like, I saw something similar before."

"When?" Bruce asked.

She just shrugged in response.

_There was some noise, but he couldn't focus on anything. He had passed out, just before it. He felt somebody was picking him up from the ground._

_"_ No, no, no. God. Kid gets himself kidnapped. Why didn't he stay in the safe, when he was dying..." Tony muttered angrily. Pepper and Natasha looked at him with a raised eyebrows. "Yeah, I know. I'm a hypocrite," he waved his hand.

"Well... Yeah, you are. But you're right. The kid should stay away from the fight," Natasha agreed.

"Maybe he was abducted and sent here?" Thor suggested.

"No, he was not," Edith contradicted.

"You know the reason; you know his purpose here," Steve said with accusing tone.

Edith crossed her arms and stared at Captain America.

"Pff. Of course I know. I'm his AI, after all. Not that I can tell you this, but seeing that Miss Maximoff is not going to stop 'till she finds the answers, you will learn soon enough," Edith said arrogantly.

Everybody looked at Wanda at this point. Some of them totally had forgotten that she was showing this all to them. It was so messed up, that they had literally forgotten that she was connected to Peter's mind. Her face had become more relaxed than it was in the beginning; she was in the control now.

"Wanda, stop this," Tony said, trying to keep his voice strong like he was ordering, but it sounded more like begging.

"No! We can learn more about what's going to happen," Clint answered.

"And what, screw up more?" Tony hissed angrily.

"No! Provide your pupil over here better future!" Clint answered.

Tony sighed heavily and looked at Edith, then at Clint.

"You can't change his past, Legolas. He is the product of his timeline. Even if we change everything, it won't change a damn thing to this Peter," Stark answered bitterly. No matter how much he would like to change Peter's past, he couldn't. That was impossible.

"What about this timeline's Peter, huh? Because he is somewhere out there," Clint pressed the subject.

"Well, maybe he won't meet me at all; that would be the best for him," Tony snapped.

He was tired of this. Tired of seeing Peter trying to live up to this lie that he had left behind after his death in Pete's timeline. He was no such great superhero, he was not new-born-Jesus. Geez. He wasn't somebody that you would want to live up to.

"He already did," Edith shrugged.

Then, as if on command, a memory showed up. The truth was that Wanda just searched Peter's mind the right memory.

_Peter was a little kid; he was standing in some kind of yard, wearing an Iron Man mask on his face. Then, Hammer's bot landed before him. He raised his hand, palm he raised, mimicking Iron Man._

"Hammer's bot," Tony's eyes widened in recognition. He remembered.

"The kid was your fan since the beginning, right?" Clint chuckled.

_Iron Man landed behind Peter and blasted the bot._

_"Good job, kid," he said and flew away._

"You saved his life," Pepper said with a little smile.

\- No surprise that he would look up to you as his superhero mentor. - Natasha added.

Great. Just great. Like he needed a kid who would look up to him. He was a mess; he didn't want this kind of life for anybody else. At yet, it seemed like somebody must pull off this shit after he was gone; it was bad luck that it fell on Peter. He didn't know much about the kid (duh, they shouldn't call him kid, because he was adult, but because of these memories, they just couldn't stop themselves in thinking that way about him). But from what he could tell, he was a good kid, he shouldn't have been pulled into this mess.

_Everything was so damn white... why everything was so damn white?_

_There were some noises in the background, but he couldn't identify them. He was lying on something. Then, he passed out again._

_Next time he opened his eyes, he looked at his left arm and discovered that he was hooked up to some kind tech. There were a lot of wires. He looked right and he saw some figure dressed in black. He looked at its face. It seemed to be human. White male with dark hair...but it was blurred. Somebody else was there too; they talked. Then he felt cloth on his face and passed out again._

"Damn," Steve murmured.

"Language," Tony, Clint, and Natasha said at the same time, but without any humor in it. Like it was an automatic response. They were too focused on the kid.

"How do we know that you're not some kind of spy?" Bruce asked Edith. They could have done anything to Peter then and he could change his AI coding. They could have been sent by this so-called Sinister Six.

"You don't. But you can look for more intel in Pete's memories," Edith answered honestly. "They didn't harm him," she added.

"What? So what did they do?" Pepper asked.

"You'll see," Edith answered.

_Peter woke up in the middle of nowhere. He rose slowly then looked around, only to see fields and nothing more._

_"Edith? EDITH?! Shit." He realized that he had no tech with him and the glasses were still at Harley's office._

_He felt... fine. He was not so pale and he felt fine. He touched his neck: the damaged tissue around the spider bite was gone._

_"What the hell..."_

"What the hell," Tony mirrored Peter's question.

_Peter started walking, looking for some civilization. He was trying to remember something. There was a fight against Six people in black. Lila called them the Sinister Six. Poetic as fuck if you asked him. That guy talked to him...and then the other guy flew out from the collapsed building. The first guy used some purple energy to push him and he... what happened next? Damn!_

_He walked through the field and smiled, remembering the Netherlands. When as a young kid, he was walking toward Stark Jet and Happy was waiting for him. He was so scared back then; he had hugged Happy for comfort when he was sure that it was truly Happy. He would give up everything for such person again; but he couldn't pull Happy into shit like this again._

_He found a road, yay!_

"He seems to be close to Happy," Tony stated.

Edith sighed.

"Boss made Happy a 'nanny' to Peter. Happy was not exactly happy about it...but Peter has the incredible talent to grow on people," Edith answered, getting little emotional about this. She remembered when Peter had trusted Beck with her. She should have overridden Beck's orders, but she was so... less of herself back then. She was too damn simple back then.

_Peter was walking the road, no signs, just road in the middle of nowhere._

Tony had a little bit of flashback from Tennessee.

_Then, he heard a car behind him, and he waved for it to stop. The driver stopped and Peter went closer._

_"That's Peter Parker!" the kid from the backseat said in awe._

_"Hello... Could you give me a lift closer to civilization?" he asked with a charming smile._

"The Man of Spiders seems to be recognizable, like you Friend Tony," Thor commented.

"Duh. You heard Edith. He's the CEO of the biggest company in the universe. Of course he's recognizable," Clint answered and looked at Tony. "Probably he has a bigger fanbase than his ol' man," Barton teased.

Tony only huffed.

_Peter was standing in an empty marketplace in some small city, waiting for somebody and pacing nervously. Then, he saw an Iron Man suit in the air. Its coloring was a little bit different from Tony's, being grey with golden elements. When he landed, the nano-technology started to disappear, revealing none other than Harley Keener. He had tears in his eyes. Peter tried to say something, but then Harley just hugged him tightly._

The Avengers looked at this private scene with mixed emotions. Relieved and worried. Peter didn't seem to be dying, but... what happened to him back there?

_Then Harley punched him in the face. Hard._

_"That's for not telling me that you were dying. Fuck you! Do you know how I fucking felt, when the Avengers told me that you were MIA? And you left me the glasses! And Bucky told me that you were dying! And you still went fighting! FUCK YOU MAN!" Harley yelled angrily. Don't get him wrong, he was happy that Pete was fine, but damn this fucking idiot!_

_"Wait... are you still dying?" Harley asked when Peter was silent._

_"... I don't know," he answered after a while._

_Then they saw a jet in the air._

_The next memory was in Avengers' Mansion, down in the lab. Peter was hooked up to some scanners._

_"I'm touched;, A-Force and the Avengers joined forces to find me, really... I'm touched. Well. I'm not, but let's pretend that I'm, you know. For good effect," Peter was talking to Cap Marvel. "Good thing you grew your hair long; it suits you better," he said and she only rolled her eyes._

_In the room were Wilson, Barnes, Harley, Kamala, Robbie, Lila, Jennifer, Carol, and T'Challa._

_"Peter... be serious. You were held by the Sinister Six for over a week," Wilson murmured._

Avengers gasped at hearing that.

_"Sam... be serious," Peter mimicked. "Do you know what I need after that week that I don't remember? I need a shower. I need to shave." Peter just couldn't stand being with Wilson in the same room. They could fight together; they could be quite awesome with that... but when the fight was over, god. He hated that man because of everything that he represented within himself._

_"No, really Peter. We need to know if you're okay," Lila said with a sigh._

_"I'm fine," Peter murmured._

_"We don't know what they did to you. You were dying," Bucky said._

_"Yeah... I should be dead right now. EDITH, scan results, please?" Peter sighed and looked at his side, where holo-Edith showed up, holding holo-tablet. She totally didn't need to keep doing that. She didn't need to read results, but it made her look more humanish._

_"Blood Toxicity: 50%," Edith answered. "Your body adapted to the poison created by your mutation. It's floating through your veins now and your body is accepting it fully... but it was not natural. Your body mutated in order to do so..." she added._

_Peter raised his brow._

_"But that wouldn't be possible without the DNA of the spider," Peter answered._

_"Yes, you're correct, Peter," Edith sighed._

_"Wait. Let me get this straight. You were dying because of your mutation," T'Challa, who was standing next to Captain Marvel, started. "And the Sinister Six healed you from something that you couldn't cure yourself. With data that nobody has. Right?" he asked Peter, who nodded again._

_"That's a good summary," Peter shrugged._

_"What happened with the data about the spider that bit you?" Kamala asked._

_"Oscorp literally torched it," Harley answered for Peter. They were both looking for data about the spider even before all of this mess had happened._

_"Yeah. Did you hear that the guy who inherited SI is Spider-Man? His name is Peter Parker. Like the Peter Parker who was on that trip where one of our radioactive spiders ran away? And he says that his powers come from radiation? Let's destroy everything that we have on it." Peter rolled his eyes and took a glass and poured himself some "whiskey". Barnes noticed that it was from the glass that held tea._

"He was bitten by a radioactive spider?" Banner raised his eyebrows and looked at Edith. The Hulk was created by radiation, too. Edith only nodded, but she didn't say anything about Peter's powers.

_"So, the Sinister Six is connected to Oscorp?" Robbie suggested._

_"I doubt it. Oscorp has problems on its own," Harley sighed. "So what, Sinister Six knows more about Pete's problems that we do." He was not happy about it; he was still damn angry at Peter._

_"Did you tell anybody about what was happening to you? Except me?" Barnes asked, looking at Peter._

_"Did you know?" Harley snapped._

_"He learned about it the day that I was taken because he found me drowning in my own blood." That was strange, Peter defending Bucky. "And I didn't tell anybody. That was the point, you know? Close things, push people away, die alone." Peter rolled his eyes._

_Harley's face softened a little bit._

_"Why did you visit me at all that day?" Pete asked, looking at Barnes._

_"To get your help with the Sinister Six," James shrugged. Peter only chuckled._

_"So, you don't know what was happening with you?" Wilson asked him._

_"No, I told you, I don't remember. The last thing I remember was talking with the one of Sinister Six on the battlefield. He blasted me with that purple energy. Then I was in some kind of lab? There were two people... but nothing more. I was knocked out." Peter sighed; he was already tired with that conversation._

_"You actually talked with them?" Carol raised her eyebrows._

_"Not really, just the typical villain crap. "Fighting us is pointless." Peter rolled his eyes and took a sip of his "drink". "Edith, do you have any information about that energy?" he asked, looking at holo-Edith._

_"Yes, I'm analyzing it now... Oh... crap." If she was not only a hologram, everybody would say that her face paled._

Everybody looked at Edith, who didn't react. They would see it again soon.

_"What?" almost everybody in the room asked at the same time._

_"The energy that was used in the fight... it is very, very...very similar to a type of energy with which we are familiar: Infinity Stones Energy," Edith answered, watching everybody in the room._

_Carol cursed alongside T'Challa and Barnes. Wilson paled and rubbed his eyes after a few seconds._

"Infinity Stones?" Tony asked.

Edith only hummed in reply.

_A short flashback of Tony Stark, holding the Infinity Gauntlet, energy running through his body from Peter's view._

_"_ Ah... That. I almost forgot," Tony grimaced.

_"But the Infinity Stones were destroyed," Jennifer answered and looked at the rest._

_"In our universe, yes," Wanda said, entering the room. She was very different. Older, and looked a lot... wiser. She was wearing a scarlet tiara and a lot of jewelry in the same color._

Wanda smiled a little bit, seeing herself in the future, but that was her only reaction, because she was still too much consumed with abusing Peter's mind to react more about it.

Barton whistled.

"The kids grew up so quickly," Clint smiled.

_"Scarlet Witch." Peter became weary around her._

_"Spider-Man," she answered. "Strange and I noticed the flow of inter-universe energy. Our Sinister Six are probably dimension's jumpers," . - Wanda explained to the team._

_Peter chuckled._

_"It's hilarious. No matter how far we go, how much time passes...it is still about Infinity Stones," Peter pointed out it. Nobody wanted to admit that, but it was damn ironic. From the first assemble it was about the Infinity Stones. Even destroyed in their universe, it was still about them. "So, the one who knocked me down has the powers of Power Stone?" Peter guessed._

_"That would be correct, but they don't have the full power of it. They are not wielding it in any way. It's just similar. Like Ms. Danvers's powers," Edith explained._

_"So, they were exposed to the pure energy coming from the Stones. We can assume that all of them have power from stones. The archer can teleport himself. Space Stone. I don't know about the others," Danvers said._

_"The one we blasted into the building, the flying one, could phase himself like Vision did," Wilson added._

_Archer._

_Flying one._

_Big one._

_Six._

_Forged in the hottest place on his planet and hardened where it's the coldest._

_Peter paled._

"The kid realized something," Natasha murmured.

"Only what?" Steve sighed.

_"Oh... fuck me," Peter said, looking at the rest. He took a tablet quickly, starting to analyze data from the battle by himself. He threw down the tablet after second, which fell through Holo-Edith, then sat near his main computer, opening all holographic screens._

_"Parker, what?" Wilson asked._

_"He was taunting me. TAUNTING ME RIGHT IN MY FACE AND I DIDN'T UNDERSTAND IT!" Peter yelled angrily._

_"What? Who?" Robbie asked._

_"The guy in the battle. The one with purple power," Peter babbled, running through data. "He said to me that the other one is 'forged in the hottest place on his planet and hardened where it's the coldest,'" he added._

_The superheroes in the room raised their eyebrows in askance, except for Harley, who paled as well._

_"No way," Keener answered._

_"What?" T'Challa asked._

_"The most popular biography of Tony Stark. First-line. 'Anthony Edward Stark, a man forged in the Afghan sun and hardened in Siberian snow," Peter murmured._

_Flashback -_

_The one masked villain landed next to the other one during the fight, after he had blasted his way from the ruined building._

_"Stark," the first one said._

_"Cap," the other one answered._

_\- Return._

Natasha, Steve, and Tony paled and opened their mouths with shock.

"What?" Banner asked.

_Flashback -_

_"Father won't be pleased," Natasha said, looking at Tony in the lab, who was standing next to Peter._

_"I'm doing my job," Tony answered and knocked Peter out again._

_\- Return._

Now it was time for the rest to join in the shock.

_"The Sinister Six are the Original Avenger Six." Peter said what he had on mind finally. They didn't notice that Holo-Edith vanished._

_But before anybody could react, the Avengers, the original squad. entered the room. Their armor was black, but they didn't look exactly different. Just like the guys all of them had remembered._

_"Talking about us behind our backs? That's rude. I thought we taught you better," Natasha smirked._

_Then... something exploded._

* * *

Here we go! Another chapter. I hope that you are enjoying it. Almost 5k words in this chapter, I guess this is a new record for me xD Originally I planned to end this with Peter's escape from SinSix, but I and my fantastic Beta Reader decided that it will better to do this chapter little longer :D

Spidey is back in MCU (yeah, I know. Old news, but I didn't update since that drama xD) yay!

I was some strange news about somebody not wanting Renner to play Hawkeye, I didn't read much, anybody knows what is going on?

I know, I know. I only borrowed the name "Sinister Six" they don't have much in common with Sinister Six from Marvel Comics. I just thought about the name for evil original six and... you know. xD It happened. xD

Like always, see ya at the next! :D


	7. Chapter 7

Well, I realize that I made a mistake. When Wanda became an Avenger, FRIDAY was already online, but I did that mistake in the past chapters, so I'm going to hold it. I never said when this fic is exactly happening and I realized now that I mixed event so much... but I don't care xD This fic is AU as hell anyway, so xD

 **Beta Reader:** Alia275

* * *

"WHO THE HELL ARE THEY?!" Tony yelled when he saw the evil Avengers enter.

_It was not a big explosion, just one of the console panels in the Avenger's Mansion Lab. Then, the next one. Some of the Avengers were too shocked to react, but not Carol. She began to glow, summoning her power, when Hawkeye stepped forward and raised his hand. Carol doubled over in pain, her glow fading. He stepped away from her as she tried unsuccessfully to stand._

_"We are not here to fight," Steve Rogers told Carol, who was gasping in pain._

_Robbie turned on his Ghost Rider mode, intending to attack Hawkeye with his chain, but Natasha raised her hand, creating a golden shield that protected Clint from attack._

_"Then why are you here?" T'Challa asked diplomatically before the situation could worsen._

_"It's a warning. Surrender or die," Steve answered, voice cold._

That cold voice and expression from this Steve sent shivers down the Avengers' spines.

" _I think you know us better than that, punk," Bucky said uneasily to Rogers._

_Steve smirked._

_"Yeah, I know," he answered as another part of the lab exploded_

_Peter was trying to connect with the network of Mansion, trying to figure out what the hell was happening._

_"Kid, stop," Tony said with a smile. "E-D-I-T-H," he spelled, smirking._

_Peter realized what he was saying._

"What's going on?" Natasha asked Tony, who seemed to have the same realization that Peter had.

"Even dead, I'm the hero. That... other me - he knows Edith's coding. It's like breaking to his own house, because he has the keys," Tony rubbed his eyes in tiredly. Literally, the legacy that Peter was trying to carry bit him in the ass. His technology would be turned against him. He was too tired to make this science talk that only Bruce would understand, he was always giving, so he gave them a simple metaphor that everybody would understand.

_"Treat this as a warning. You are no match for us," Thor said as Clint created a portal that sucked up the Sinister Six._

_When they had left the room, something big blew up._

"God, this is so fucking complicated, so weird - fucked up," Clint groaned.

"Why are you two here, Edith?" Tony asked the hologram.

"To save our world from the Sinister Six," Edith answered honestly, watching Tony with some mixed emotions.

Natasha looked at hologram... she was so human that Tasha almost could read her like she was reading any human. Edith was hiding something.

Well. Probably a lot.

"But this... evil, future Tony from the Sinister Six managed to take control over... you," Banner clarified, looking at Edith.

" The Merchant of Death. Yes. But I'm not in his control anymore. I guess you'll see," Edith sighed.

"The Merchant of Death?" Tony gulped. He was not pleased with that nickname anymore.

\- Yes. The 'father' that the Black Widow in Peter's memory was speaking of sometimes was called 'Lover of Death'. He found it amusing to call one of his sons the 'Merchant of Death,'" Edith explained.

Tony thought that he was apparently doomed to have shitty excuses of fathers in his life. The thought made him snort bitterly. It was kind of downgrading, returning to that name.

_The next memory was in the lake house. They were sitting in the living room, tending each other's wounds. Robbie was pulling broken pieces of glass from Lila's leg on the sofa. Carol was sitting in the chair. icing her head and unable to pull herself together after whatever Clint had done to her._

_"That was not a real attack. That was just a little warning," Peter said quietly to Wilson, who stood nearby._

"A little warning?" Clint snorted.

_"If...if he...uses the whole firepower of EDITH, we will no longer be among the living," Peter continued._

_"I'm aware," Wilson sighed. "Can you retake control of her?" he asked._

_Normally, Peter would argue with him again...but for now, he was too tired for that._

_"I don't know," he answered honestly. "Tony wrote her after all," he added with a sigh._

_"They can destroy the Earth with her..." it was not accusation from Wilson, just a_ _simple statement. "God, never in my wildest dreams did I think that we would have to fight them." Wilson sounded tired too._

_"Yeah." Peter only nodded._

_"How are you feeling?" Sam asked._

_"Knowing that even in his darkest, most fucked up version, Tony still can't let me die? Wonderful," Peter snorted sarcastically. He was still thinking about that. Why did they save him?_

_"They're going to play on our feelings," Wilson said. "We can't give them that."_

_"Do you think you can do it? Use this shield to punch Steve in his perfect, evil teeth?" Peter asked Wilson. "I don't think so. Because during the day, we can be Spider-Man and Captain America...but when it ends...I'm a kid who got rich on the Stark Effect and you are the man that carries a shield that isn't his," Peter said, then left the room._

"Stark Effect?" Steve asked, looking at Edith.

Clint chuckled, hearing that name.

"After Tony's death in our universe...everybody in the universe learned that the Terran warrior, Tony Stark, killed Thanos and created the technology that brought their loved ones home. Stark Industries became the biggest company in the universe then. Basically, Peter meant that he got rich on Tony's death." Edith shrugged.

"It seems that like you, Peter knows how to say what hurts most," Natasha observed to Tony, thinking about Sam's expression when Peter had said he carried a shield that wasn't his. She could guess that both of them had heard that accusation before. Part of carrying someone else's legacy, it seemed.

Tony knew that you couldn't be the owner of Stark Industries and play nice at the same time. Nice meant weak in the business world.

_Peter sat in the kitchen and pulled out his phone. He opened Instagram and looked at the profile with the username iron_queen with Morgan's photo as the profile picture. He clicked the newest photo._

_There was a photo of building with the Stark Industries logo that was tagged Xandar._

_"Hey! That has my name on it!" Morgan had captioned._

_Peter chuckled, happy that Morgan and Pepper were safe._

Tony actually smiled, seeing this. For him, his name on those buildings was heavy responsibility... for her, it was "hey! It's mine!" So careless. Free.

_Then, he looked at the photo of the Avengers' holographic statues...but surprisingly it was not much of a "superhero statue". They were wearing normal clothes, not their armor. They were statues of the humans behind the suits, powers, and technology._

_"'Cause you burn with the brightest flame, the world's gonna know your name, and you'll be standing in the walls of the hall of fame'", Morgan had captioned this photo._

_Peter put his phone away and rubbed his face in a tiredly._

_"_ There's a statue of us on Xandar?" Thor asked.

Edith rolled her eyes, Tony-style. Tony-esque.

"There is a statue of you on every planet I know," she answered.

The Avengers didn't know what to do with that info, but for their sake, they didn't have to think about it a lot, because memory continued.

_Then, his spider-sense picked something. He turned around and saw... Tony Stark himself, leaning over kitchen island. He looked so...so much like Tony like that it hurt. It was hard for Peter to think that this was not his Tony. But there was something different about him at the same time. His aura..his aura was heavier, darker. And what the hell was it with that leather jacket?_

_"Hi Pete," Tony smirked. "Don't worry about the rest; they're sitting in the living room and I made sure that they won't hear us," he said calmly._

_Peter was standing in the room, not sure what he should do. Fight? Talk? Yell for the others?_

_"How are you feeling, kid? - he asked, looking at him with... concern? No, it can't be._

_"What did you do to me?" Peter asked._

_"You know what." Tony rolled his eyes. "I used the DNA of the spider to help your body adapt to the poison." He shrugged it off, opening the fridge and taking some soda from it._

_Peter decided to ignore that Tony made himself feel like he was at his home...well. Shit. He kinda was._

_"Since when you are a DNA mutation specialist?" he asked, knowing that this Tony Stark could be completely different than his._

_"Since I got a spiderling under my roof. I hacked Oscorp ages ago... I'm surprised that your Tony didn't do that," he answered and drank some soda. "I have always known that there would be some shit going on with your spider mix-up," he added after taking a sip._

_Peter was surprised by that information._

_"If he did, the info that he found there was lost alongside with FRIDAY," Peter revealed._

_"What happened to FRIDAY?" Tony asked, curious._

_"She... died," Peter said carefully._

_"_ Who is FRIDAY?" Thor asked, looking at Edith.

"My sister, Boss's main AI after JARVIS," she explained. "When my Boss died, she was...damaged. A lot of her coding burned alongside Boss. A lot of data was lost too," she added sadly, making everybody in the room uncomfortable again. The AI was grieving the death of her "sister," Tony's other creation.

_"Alongside your Tony, right? I guess I could suspect that. The energy of Infinity Stones can destroy anything on its way," the Merchant answered after a few seconds of thinking. He picked up a frame that was hanging on the wall. There was a picture of Pepper, Tony and little Morgan in front of the house. Tony's lips cracked in something that could be called a smile._

_"As much as I envy your Tony's life, I don't envy his death. Exposing himself to the energy of the stones...that's a painful way to go," he said, returning the frame to its place. "If my math is right, he lived very painfully for fifteen minutes before he died. It's kinda ironic. if you think about it," Tony chuckled, taking another sip of soda._

Tony frowned.

"Yeah... it's ironic," he admitted.

"What? Why?" Pepper asked.

"Fifteen minutes... that's how long my first arc reactor was able to power the first Iron suit," Tony answered. He thought about that day in the Afghan cave. Something big for fifteen minutes.

_"You envy him?" Peter raised his brow, he was standing still, watching Tony carefully._

_"Sure. He got everything I wanted. He married Pepper, had Morgan. Our pasts are not that different...I would say that they are the same for one moment. Our universes stopped being one sometime after your homecoming. Even if he didn't live long enough to enjoy it fully, he still managed to have it." Tony shrugged._

Pepper and Tony exchanged glances.

"Something was very off about it... the Sinister Six was so cold, so devilish...and Tony seems to be..." Natasha couldn't find the right word to describe it.

"Normal?" Clint suggested.

"Yeah... normal," Tasha nodded.

" _Why are you here?" Peter asked, looking in the direction of the living room. He could hear conversations from there; everybody seemed to be okay, but maybe that was only the illusion. No. He would sense it if it were an illusion made by BARF._

_"To talk. To check up on you. To spy. To kill you. To create a distraction. To spent time with you. Are you going to believe anything that I'm going to say?" Tony chuckled bitterly. He sounded actually hurt by the mistrust in Peter's eyes._

_"No, I don't think so," he admitted._

_"Well, before Thanos kills you all, using us to do so...I wanted to talk. It's good for my mind to talk to somebody not brainwashed by Thanos from time to time. Keeps me sane," Tony chuckled._

_"So, you are suggesting that you are not brainwashed and the rest are?" Peter asked warily. He was not as relaxed as the Merchant; no, he was far from it. He didn't trust his words either but decided that maybe it was worth listening to him._

_"Like I said. Sometime after your homecoming. What made the difference between our universes is the fact how Thanos looked at the Avengers, you know? In this and many other universes, he saw Avengers as bugs, meddling in his divine quest. He only knew me by name," Tony chuckled._

_Peter looked at Tony and sighed._

_"You blew up half of his army, delayed his quest for over a decade, of course he knew your name," Peter shrugged._

"What?" Pepper asked, looking at Tony and then at EDITH.

"New York. Loki was only leading the army; it wasn't his. He was doing it poorly, if I may," Edith answered with kinda bored voice. This was an elementary part of future-modern history.

"Do you mean that my brother..." Thor started, but then he was interrupted by EDITH.

"Was he mind-controlled? Probably. I don't know. Nobody really checked that. When we learned about Thanos, it was too late," Edith answered. What she could say? That his 'beloved' brother was going to die? She was not sure if in this timeline Loki already died in the Dark Elves' realm, but looking at Thor's face, she could assume that Loki was "dead" for now in his opinion. Tony paled, remembering the wormhole.

_Flashback -_

_Peter was on the orange, dusty planet, like the one that they saw in the memory where Peter turned into dust. He tried to put himself together after some heavy punch. He looked in Tony's direction. Stark was in his Iron Man suit, and he landed on the ground._

_"You throw another moon at me, and I'm gonna to lose it," Tony said, looking at a big purple guy. Peter was able to hear this thanks to his super senses._

_"Stark," Thanos answered._

_"You know me?" Tony sounded...surprised. Troubled. How did somebody feel when he realized that the biggest psychopath in the universe knew your name?_

_"I do...you are not the only one cursed with knowledge," Thanos answered calmly._

_There it was...these few seconds of silence, where Tony didn't know how to answer this._

_"My only curse is you,"_ _he finally answered, and then attacked._

_\- Return._

Tony was as pale as a sheet. His heart rate was crazy; he could feel it. He knew New York was beginning. He was right. He was always right.

Void. Army. War. Emptiness. Spaceship.

Thanos.

He knew Tony's name.

In some twisted way...Thanos believed that they were the same.

Cursed with knowledge.

"Tony. Tony!" He heard Pepper's voice. The first time she said his name was soft, the second was more worried, trying to ground him. Pull him back from the place where he shouldn't go.

"Breathe, Tony. Breathe." He could feel Pepper's hands on his arms. He looked at her, trying to control his breathing. He didn't have a true and severe panic attack, but it was a close call.

He looked at his teammates, with a glare that meant "not a word."

_"In our universe, Tony made him bleed...and sharks came," Peter added._

_The Merchant of Death looked at him and chuckled._

_"He told you a lot," he noticed._

"If you could make God bleed, people will cease to believe in Him. There will be blood in the water, the sharks will come," Tony said weakly, knowing this quote all too well. Bloody Vanko...guess he was right about that one. But Tony was not the one that was consumed...was he?

Thor raised his brow. He didn't quite understand that quote, but the rest of Avengers realized that somebody had said that thing to Tony, that this was about Tony, and he remained silent.

_Peter didn't say anything. Remembering times when he and Tony just talked. Peter started developing "superhero problems" and Tony was worried, the only way to make him talk was to talk about his own problem too._

_Flashback -_

_"All that for a drop of blood," Thanos said, wiping the blood from something that looked like a papercut on his face._

_The scene changed -_

_"That's part of the act. Iron Man can't bleed. Stark can't bleed. I can bleed to death, but none of them...because there will be blood in the water and sharks will come. Do you understand what I'm trying to say, kid?" Tony asked with a heavy, tired voice and looked at Peter. They were sitting on some rooftop._

_\- Return._

_"_ My own past is going to come back and laugh at me," Tony murmured and rubbed his eyes. He knew what his future self meant about bleeding, the sad truth about his life. It was a play and he played too many characters at once.

_"That never happened to me. I guess it was spectacular," Tony smirked._

_"No, I cut myself heavier with paper," Peter answered with a similar smirk._

_"Still impressive when you know from what Titan skin is made of," the Merchant shrugged._

_"I have to ask...what the hell is it with that leather jacket?" Peter asked Tony, who chuckled, looking at his clothing._

_"Every killer wears synthetic leather. It's easy to clean blood from it," the Merchant answered simply, making Peter shudder. It was easy to forget that this man was a killer. Son of Thanos._

Natasha and Clint looked at each other and nodded. It was true.

_"I guess you are not here to drink soda and be an exposition man," Peter tried again._

_"You are kinda right. But only kinda. I'm looking for what you are made of, kid." The Merchant came closer, dangerously close. "Because, maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but Thanos will order me to kill you...and I fought that battle too many times, Peter. You will have me vulnerable...but you will hesitate...you always hesitate...and it will be your doom. It was the doom of my Peter." Peter stared into Tony's eyes. There was an endless sea of pain roiling within their amber depths._

_"You killed Peter from your universe?" Peter asked without thinking._

_"Yes. I choked the life out of him," Tony admitted with a face that showed no emotion, but his eyes...damn, that was a whole different story. "My new daddy dearest likes to say that the hardest choices require the strongest wills. When Thanos orders me to kill you and believe me, he will, I won't be able to hesitate. You shouldn't do that either," the Merchant said and with that he left the room, leaving a shocked Peter behind him._

_Tony Stark was asking Peter to kill him._

_"Dude, what the hell were you doing in the kitchen so long?" Robbie entered the room and asked Peter, who looked like death itself._

The Avengers didn't know what to say. The silence in the room was heavy. Even if this guy was from a different universe...he was still Tony Stark in some way. Tony Stark was suggesting that Peter kill him, he wanted to die, he was asking the kid to not to hesitate when the opportunity came.

"Uh...we...we should put some things together," Natasha was the first to say something and break the silence. "This...Merchant of Death suggested that he is the only one of us who is not brainwashed totally. How does it work for him? It's like his mind is clear, but his actions are controlled," Natasha said, but it was truly a question, pointed at Edith.

"Yes. Thanos couldn't fully control his mind. When the rest of the Sinister Six believed that this was the right thing to do, that this was their holy mission...Thanos couldn't brainwash his favorite son to that point, no matter how hard he tried," Edith answered.

"Why?" Steve asked.

"It's because of Tony's mind, right?" Bruce asked and Edith looked at him.

"What?" Tony asked, surprised.

"Tony, the way your genius brain works... hat's a miracle," Bruce answered and looked at Edith.

"Yes, it is because of that in some way. No mind control can hold a grip on him for a long period," Edith answered with a sigh.

Tony actually hummed. This was kinda new. Wanda had managed to control him, but he was never truly tested for a long time.

"Favorite son, huh?" Tony asked with a grim expression.

"In every universe that I'm aware of...Thanos treated you as equal in some way. Futurist, genius... cursed with knowledge. Then, he couldn't break your mind. You impressed him on every step. Even when you were only 'mortal' and weak, you still could use your brain, your genius to fight for you," Edith explained...then realized something that she had said. She became tense for a second, then she realized that no one caught her slip...

* * *

Many of you thought that this is going to be kinda fix-it endgame time travel fic... weeeeeelll... IT KINDA STILL IS! xD

And now... WILL PETE HESITATE OR NO?! :O

You will see that in the next chapter and I PROMISE, the next one will be the last one with memories.

See ya in the next :D


	8. AN + Extras

Not update, sorry. Yes, I'm alive.

So, what about the fic? Well... I kinda lost my Avengers hype, for now, you know? I don't feel it like I felt it when I started this. I have like 600+ words of the new chapter and I can't move forward with it. I'm trying to "get myself in the mood" but... I dunno, maybe I'm making excuses, but I sit to writing and I have some kind of block. I will try to get over it, but I can't promise anything. I know probably most of you who just got the mail about the new chapter probably forgot about this fanfiction, but if you are still interested... I'm not abandoning this fic or Future Mess. I guess I must find my Avengers hype again.

To don't make this empty author's note, I will give you some extras that never ended up in the fic. Sometimes dialogues can be familiar because I was changing scenes, ideas or sth, sometimes it's just a deleted scene.

**They are not beta-read!**

* * *

_\- No, no, did I mentioned NO? - Peter yelled and entered his office in Stark Industries. He wore a black suit, t-shit with some meme and pair of black converse. Captain America went after him with his buddy-buddy Bucky._

_\- Parker, listen to me... - Sam looked at him._

_\- I'm listening to you, and I'm saying no. You are so full of yourself. You dare coming here and ask for my help. You dare to come to HIS COMPANY and asking me for using HIS TECHNOLOGY, to go back in time and STEAL from HIM. - Peter was furious._

_\- You are supporting the New Avengers Program. - Bucky said._

_\- Shut up. - Peter hissed. - I'm supporting NAP, but I'm not part of it and I'm not going to everything that you want. - Parker snapped._

_\- Superheroes support each other. - Sam said and looked at Peter._

_And it was it..._

_\- Superheroes support each other. - Peter replied. And he did it again. And again..._

_\- Like on Sibiria? You supported so weeelll my ol' man. Leaving him to certain death in the frozen Hydra base. When you and Rogers broke his reactor, his armor could be as well as his Iron Coffin. - Peter said, but it was only beginning._

_\- WHERE THE FUCK YOU WHERE WHEN I NEEDED HELP? HUH? WHEN the WHOLE WORLD WAS SCREAMING TEEN KID I USED TO BE TO SAFE THE WORLD? WHEN YOU FUCKING WERE WHEN I WAS BETRAYED AND FRAMED? WHERE FUCKING YOU BEEN WITH YOUR FUCKING 'SUPERHEROS HELP EACH OTHER?' - Peter yelled at them._

* * *

_\- You were there... on the day that your mother died. Say it to me that you weren't tempted. - Peter hissed and looked at Thor. Now Peter looked like the young man who broke into the Tower, which meant that this is more recent memory than those before. Thor looked... different. He was not so well built up like he was before, his hair was a lot of shorter._

_\- Sayin' that I was tempted would be a misunderstanding of millennia. I wanted to say her in the face, to save her life, I wanted to go to Loki's prison and told him that I know the truth, to help him with his madness... - Thor chuckled sadly. - But she knew... she always knew better. She said to me, that I came back to change my future, not hers. - Thor answered with a sad voice._

_\- And... well... my place is here. Even if I could save her in there, I would have to return to the place where she is gone. And... from experience, messing with time is... - Thor didn't know how to put this._

_\- I know... you screw up with time, it screws up with you. - Peter chuckled bitterly._

_Thor smiled sadly._

Almost everything from this memory caught Avengers' attention. Well, mostly Thor, because it was more about him than about anybody else. His mother died?

And the way that Thor looked like... it was very... unthorish.

\- "I know the truth?" - Natasha asked.

\- Loki was not solemnly responsible for the attack on New York. From my data, he was already unstable when he fell into the void, but it was Thanos, the mad titan, who picked him from there. I don't have data about what happened to him there, but...

* * *

_Morgan and Peter were sitting on the couch in some apartment. She had her legs lying on his thighs and she had an almost empty bowl of popcorn in her hands. They were watching something, but the movie ended and there were credits on the screen._

_\- That was unrealistic. - Morgan shrugged._

_\- Which part? - Peter asked, looking at her._

_\- This ending, where they all fall to their knees for the lost hero. Dramatic as fuck. - Morgan shrugged. Peter only chuckled sadly and said nothing, but that was a clue for Morgan that something is going on and she quickly could deduce what._

_\- They knelt for my dad, right? - she asked._

_\- Yeah... whole army. This is kinda funny, you know... Lastly, I managed to get into some of Tony's private servers and I found audio records from the first assemble. - Peter answered after seconds of silence. Morgan rose her brow. She was curious about what her bro could find in her dad's private servers._

_\- Do you know that Rogers told him that he is not the one who will sacrifice himself? And Tony answered that everything special about Steve came from a bottle. - Peter chuckled._

_\- You are shitting me. - Morgan was surprised._

_\- No. It's true. But wait, there is more. Tony put a theory that Hulk saved Banner's life. Bruce asked Tony about the purpose of saving his life... Tony said that we will have to wait and see. - Peter rolled his eyes._

_\- I didn't know that my dad was a damn prophet. - Morgan chuckled. - Damn, you have to show me this. I guess... In the end, my dad and Steve proved each other wrong and Bruce found his answer. - she added._

* * *

_Memory returned to the meeting of Happy and Peter._

_\- People forget when I join the Avengers... well, not when I actually joined, but when was the first time I looked into Avengers' life. - Peter shrugged, looking through a window. Happy's face fell. Realizing what they all missed._

_\- Civil war. - Happy said._

_Peter only nodded._

\- What? - Bruce, Clint, and Thor asked at the same time.

_\- Did you see that book about Tasha and Tony? I read it lately... it spoke about great, legendary friendship between Black Widow and Hawkeye. - Peter chuckled bitterly. - I saw they fighting against each other because She was team Iron Man, He was team Captain America. - He rolled his eyes._

_Flashback from Germany Airport, where he saw Hawkeye and Black Widow fighting against each other._

Natasha and Clint looked at each other.

\- I seem that we will have some issues in the future. - Thor said.

\- Not we... It's between me and Tony. - Steve realized. - Peter said that You were team Iron man, you were team Captain America. - The captain said, looking at Tasha, then at Clint.

\- And the rest of the Avengers needed to pick aside. - Tony said, looking at Steve.

It was strange... Like they could predict that this is possible, but there was no anger about that because it didn't happen yet. But both of man looked at each other with some... respect. Even if they were just told that they will want to hurt each other.

_\- Tony wanted me to be better than him... Now, I'm only good at repeating his mistakes. If I join the NAP, what will happen you think? - Peter drank a sip of his beer and looked at Happy._

_\- Do you think that you will cause another civil war? That is... - Happy wanted to say, but he was interrupted._

_\- No no... not immediately anyway. - Peter shook his head. - When I denied Tony's offer, when I was waiting for you to pick me home I had a short meeting with Vision... he told me something, that I didn't understand back then... now I get it. - Peter chuckled sadly._

_Happy was silent, listening._

_\- He told me that Tony and Steve can settle down their differences... probably, one day they will. But what Iron Man and Captain America did is permanent. - Peter said and took another sip of his beer. - I was like... what? what? Tony is Iron Man, Steve is Captain America, what? - Peter chuckled._

_\- Now I get it... Tony and Steve could move from Civil war, at the final battle of Infinity War, they were fighting side by side... but damage between superheroes is permanent. Tear in trust. What can I expect from the man, that is carrying with proud Captain America's shield? The same shield that almost killed my mentor? Sorry... #TeamIronManRemembers. - Peter laughed._

_\- I mean... I trust these guys to protect the Earth, that is why I support the program, but... - Peter sighed._

_\- You don't trust them to have your back. - Happy finished._

_Peter didn't answer._

* * *

_Peter was in his office, writing down his will. He was passin' the company to Morgan and letting Pepper take charge of it to the moment that Morgan became at age. At this moment, May entered the office._

_\- Peter! - she said with enthusiasm._

_\- Aunt May... - he smiled._

_\- You were quiet lately. So, 'sup? How are things with you and M.J.? And how is the company? Pepper was telling me that you don't leave her much to do. - she babbled with the speed of light._

_\- I'm fine, things between me and M.J. are wonderful... and you know. I need to learn how to do everything, the best way to learn is practice. - Peter answered with a smile. Lair Lair pants on fire. - And how are things between you and Happy huh? Should I fire him for breaking your heart? - Peter chuckled._

_\- Nah! We are fine! He is so... domestic... but I think that it's fine. I kinda need that right now. - May admitted with a smile._

_\- Good. So... will you have some time to come over? - May asked after second. Peter didn't know how to answer that... it was so hard to say no. But... what other choice did he have?_

_\- Sorry, May... not this week. Pepper just left for her vacation, I need to hold a grip. But I promise when she returns I will find the time. - he answered with a forced smile. Knowing that he won't be alive when Pepper returns._

_\- Pepper? What happened with Mrs. Stark? - May asked with a raised brow._

_Peter just smiled. May kissed his cheek and left the room._

Pepper just closed her eyes with pain. She was blind with Tony and with is going to be with Peter too.

\- But hey! It seems that Happy will find some love! That is worth mentioning! - Tony pointed out this.

Few avengers smiled even, these who knew Happy better (Tasha, Bruce, and Steve) but this was not enough from turning their attention that the kid is dying. Or was. Or will be.


End file.
